Teind
by ianthewaiting
Summary: After encountering a strange creature in the Forbidden Forest, Hermione Granger finds herself swept up in a perversion of a fairy tale where 'once upon a time' is not necessarily concluded with 'happily ever after'. Dub-con, AU, DH-EWE, Character Death, angst, etc.
1. Chapter 1

_**TEIND**_

 **Author:** ianthe_waiting  
 **Rating:** MA/NC-17  
 **Warning(s):** Dub-Con, hints of bestiality, non-fluffy pregnancy, gore, angst, major character death(s)  
 **Summary:** After encountering a strange creature in the Forbidden Forest, Hermione Granger finds herself swept up in a perversion of a fairy tale where 'once upon a time' is not necessarily concluded with 'happily ever after'.  
 **Original Prompt:** _Possible AU. An adaptation of a fairy tale, any fairy tale you like! Can be completely AU, or can be worked in with the HP-verse. As closely or freely adapted as you like. I just ask for an adaptation of a classic fairytale, and not a contemporary one._  
 **Author's Notes:** This work of fiction relies mostly on the Ballad of Tam Lin, which has undergone several revisions through the centuries. Though this fic is loosely based on the Ballad of Tam Lin, there are allusions to other classic fairy tales and myth. Perhaps the most contained on-line source about the Ballad of Tam Lin is: /

* * *

 _ **Prelude – on the road to Elysium**_

The sound of birth, wet and violent, was followed by the strong odour of blood, and in the moonlight a babe gave its first cry. It was a weak, pitiful cry and the bodies assembled in a circle about the birth scene watched with pale eyes in a fascination unfamiliar to the humans in the middle of that circle. There were whispers from motionless mouths, a subdued excitement at the witnessing of a human birth—so novel, so barbaric, and so bloody.

Severus Snape stood nude and shuddering, not from the cold of a late October night, but from unadulterated hatred. Behind him, on the ground, was a woman who was clinging as tightly to life as she was to the child she had birthed. He would fight the pale creatures that blocked any route of escape, even if it meant he would die. Years ago, he would never willingly play such a role, but it seemed fate made Severus Snape forever the unwilling sacrifice.

The woman on the ground, Hermione Granger, was trying her best to swaddle her newborn son in the tatters of her once fine cloak. Her body was battered and bruised, and beside the slow and constant trickle of bloody afterbirth from between her thighs, blood oozed from wounds to her arms and back, face and neck. Hermione Granger was a mere shadow as her life ebbed, and it would not be long before death took her.

The only sound was the babe's cries, pained from birth and from the unnatural magicks that caused its birth, which caused sudden aging from seven months to a healthy full term baby. Had the babe been born without the magicks, there was no guarantee that it would survive, and the creatures whose enchanted circle surrounded the mother, father, and child were very interested in acquiring such a pure and innocent soul.

'Give us the babe…' a voice echoed on the wind, mingled with the ethereal twinkling of bells and the timbre of age. 'And you will go free, Severus Snape…'

Hermione cradled the child to her breast, bare and bloody from prior and unintentional violence. With one hand she clasped her son to her heart and with the other she grasped Severus' bare heel. At her cool touch, Severus glanced back to her pallid and sweaty face, knowing exactly what must be done.

Perhaps Hell would not be as terrible as he had imagined, and he would not be alone…

Hermione was dying and without her, the child would be motherless and alone. Giving himself to the creatures, fair and pale, would leave the child an orphan, and in giving the child to be the tithe to Hell would certainly damn him. Severus never wanted a child, and he knew that developing affection for one would take much convincing. All the same, the child, his child, was innocent while he…

"A trade," he muttered. "I was the one who was to be the tithe. I will go willingly in the place of the woman and child, but you must swear that neither will come to harm and after this night be unmolested by the Fae."

The assembly seemed to consider collectively, but it was the figure that sat above on a white horse that Severus addressed.

The Queen of the Fairies was as ancient as the hills that hugged the road, and as fair as the moon, but under the luminous, enchanted façade; time had made the Queen hideous and callous. 'Why would I want your soul when I can have one as pure as new snow and as precious as diamonds?'

"No!" Hermione screamed with a force laced with innate magic, and Severus was startled by the power of her voice. Even so close to death, a mother's protective instinct was strong, and in the corner of his mind, Severus was reminded of another woman, a mother, who had died because of his mistakes.

The Fae, trooping males and females clad in ceremonial garb, seemed to twitter in laughter though their mouths did not move. They found the mortal woman's magic amusingly thin, but knew in their age, not to underestimate witches.

"I will go, I am the Teind, my Queen," Severus announced, stepping away from Hermione's grasp to go to one knee in supplication.

Hermione crawled, trailing blood and gore in her wake, and with his child pressed into his back, wet and bloody, Severus allowed the woman and child to embrace him as tears fell onto his icy skin.

"You will not be the sacrifice again, Severus Snape. I forbid it!" Hermione hissed, the anger in her voice a palpable sting into his brain. "Better we all die!"

The circle broke then, Hermione leaning into Severus' bare back, the decision of the ancient Queen made. Before Severus could react, the Fae had taken Hermione from his back and the child from her arms. The shriek that alit the air sent shivers down his spine, and he looked to the mounted Queen for an explanation he knew would never come. With preternatural speed and the most delicate of magicks, the Fae wrapped him a black shroud, as they did Hermione, placing her body in his arms. The child was gone though its cries of forced separation were near.

Forced to mount a black horse that bent down to allow Severus to keep hold of Hermione, he saw that a procession was forming around him, and standing in the shadow of a tree, a male Fae trooper held his wriggling, newborn son.

"What have we done?" Hermione whispered weakly, her arms falling about Severus' neck as she watched her child over his shoulder disappear as the procession began to move with their mount in the middle.

Severus could not answer. He could only wait and see, and pray that if anyone was to be saved that night, it would be the child who was faultless in the travesty that was Severus Snape's life.


	2. Chapter 2

_**One**_

A Third Year was the first to spot the strange animal just under the trees near the Whomping Willow not long after the War. The sighting of a 'bear-like thing' was not taken seriously until corroborated a week later by a group of Fifth Year students strolling along the edge of the Forest on their way to Hogsmeade. Again, a 'bear beast' was the best description any of the staff could extract from the children. Words such as 'black,' 'big,' 'abnormal,' and 'unafraid,' gave many of the staff a reason to worry. Bears had not been seen in the Highlands for centuries, and for a bear to be spotted in a magical woodland was a point of great concern.

However, the Groundskeeper and Care of Magical Creatures instructor, Rubeus Hagrid, sighted the bear only once more. With Hagrid's expertise with animals magical and non-magical, the half giant confirmed the student's claims. Indeed, a wild bear, larger than any normal bear and with a coat as black as pitch was roaming the border between the castle grounds and the Forest. Hagrid tried to approach the beast, unafraid of the beast's size and apparently lack of hesitancy to be so near humans. The bear ignored Hagrid and returned to the dark of the Forest, never to be seen again.

This, of course, was only the beginning of several years of strange animal sightings on the edge of the castle grounds after the War. Never once did the creature attempt to leave the safety of the trees, and never once did the creatures harm any of the students, that is, until Hermione Granger began teaching at Hogwarts fourteen years after the Battle of Hogwarts.

* * *

A late spring outing to Hogsmeade was met with great enthusiasm before term exams, and even Hermione Granger was glad to be outside of the castle even if it were for a few hours. Hermione was one of three chaperones keeping an eye on the excited Third-Years and reminiscing about her seemingly fateful visits to Hogsmeade all those years before. The fact that she was now the teacher and not the student gave her an ounce of satisfaction, and as she walked along the cobble streets, peeking in through the shop windows to her students, she found that almost nothing had changed in Hogsmeade since her last time visiting as a student herself.

Every shop held a memory, mostly pleasant, and every familiar face of shopkeepers held a spark of happiness. Fourteen years after the War, she felt as if the world was a happier, safer place, a place she helped create by sacrificing her education, years of her life in the service of the Ministry, and the normality of marriage and family. All the same, Hermione Granger was exactly where she wanted to be—teaching and living in the one place that felt like home. At Hogwarts, she would never be alone, and she would never be bored. At Hogwarts, she would be respected and cared for as well as cherishing her colleagues and students, caring and molding lives just as hers had been. These thoughts gave her even more satisfaction, and more importantly, purpose. Nonetheless, it was not the life she had anticipated. There was no marriage, no children, and besides her insatiable curiosity, no passion…

Walking behind a gaggle of Third Years along the road to one of the iconic stops along, Hermione sighed as the darker, less than happy memories began seeping in. Yet, as she fell in behind her students at the fence barring passage to the Shrieking Shack, her memories faded away. The icon of an era was being dismantled, bit-by-bit, by Ministry workmen.

"My mum told me about this place…" one Third Year girl with long dark hair whispered in near reverence to her blonde friend, both in Ravenclaw. "…it was once called the most haunted house in all of Britain, but the truth was…"

"A professor died here…" another student whispered, a Slytherin boy. "A Slytherin professor…Snipe or Skipe…"

Hermione bit her lower lip before answering: "Snape, Severus Snape."

The sound of her voice startled not only the students but also herself. Apparently she had not been noticed following the students up the road to the Shack, but now that she was noticed, the students turned their attention away from the Shack and the layers of sun bleached board being peeled away to reveal the dusty and molded interior.

"Professor? Wasn't it You-Know-Who who killed that Professor?" the Slytherin boy asked, a boy who had a pug nose, horrible teeth, and freckles.

"Voldemort, Mr. Flint, and yes, Voldemort murdered Professor _Snape_ , who had been Headmaster, the night of the Battle of Hogwarts…"

The students' eyes widened as they looked to Hermione, and she realised how she was almost the same height as they were, no bigger than a Third-Year, but far older on the inside, and far more jaded.

The questions came about Remus Lupin then, his short tenure at Hogwarts, and the nature of his affliction. Teddy Lupin was somewhat of a Hogwarts celebrity already, and she had noticed him in Honeyduke's on her way to the Shack, surrounded by a throng of Hufflepuff girls. Hermione was glad to speak of Remus, smirking at the thought of Teddy and his adoring entourage, circling the conversation back to the importance of the Shrieking Shack and away from Severus Snape. She steered the conversation to what she knew about why the Shack was coming down and what would be constructed to replace it.

Considered a growing health risk, the magic that had held the Shack together was finally coming undone. In its place, the Ministry had decided to erect a memorial, modest though it would be, to the heroes of the Order of the Phoenix, finally recognised after decades of obscurity, as those responsible of saving the Wizarding world from evil. It was a naïve generalisation in Hermione's view, but it was something, and it seemed that their world had a need for more memorials…

"It is getting late," Hermione announced as she watched the workmen begin to vanish the roofing tiles and the green copper gutters. "You should head back to the village and begin to the castle."

No student argued, and there was no further discussion about the past or the War. One by one, Slytherins, Ravenclaws, and even a Gryffindor began to head back along the road to Hogsmeade. Hermione watched her students fondly, but the sound rusty nails being ripped from old wood brought her attention back to the Shack, yet her thoughts were not of the Shack at all.

She thought of Severus Snape, and could not remember a time after the War that she thought of him longer than a few minutes which were used to pity the man. A wriggling worm of guilt stirred in her brain for not thinking of the man who, in hindsight, was far more a hero than most. There would be no memorial for him, and even the portrait in the Headmistress' office had never moved from its slumbering pose. There were so few traces of Snape that he was mentioned only once in the reminisces of those who made profit after the War with the press—Skeeter's book had been a literary and financial disaster much to Hermione's amusement. It seemed a terrible remiss on the part of those who had been integral to the downfall of Voldemort.

Hermione taught Arithmancy, and not Potions, and thus had little excuse to step foot into the subterranean laboratories where the ghost of Snape would, logically, be strongest. Though she would sometimes cover classes for Horace Slughorn, the laboratories were Slughorn's now, and the old man's personal touch was engrained in everything. No one spoke of Snape in warm 'remember whens' and no one seemed to remember much about the man other than his overwhelming scathing personality, his fluttering black robes, and his beakish nose. Hermione could only recall his sallow skin, greasy black hair, probing onyx eyes, and his long, oddly delicate fingers. It was the tiny details of his demeanor she remembered best, such as the scent of his robes—a mixture of acidic fumes and faint musk. There was a faint echo of his voice in her brain, but little else remained of Severus Snape in her mind's eye besides one vision.

Again, she felt incredibly guilty. Her most vivid memory of Snape was of the night he died, giving Harry his memories, and choking on his own blood. He did not look like 'Snape' that night, but some thing far pitiable, and disgusting.

She tried to recall the last time she had been inside the Shack as the Ministry workmen began to leave off for the day, having only gotten as far as dismantling the attic and upper reaches of the second story. Soon that wriggling guilty feeling abated as she remembered that she had followed Harry, exhausted but adamant, to fetch Snape's body.

Hermione was confused as to how she could have forgotten that fact so easily, especially since there was no body to be found. Harry was visibly shaken, and Hermione was simply puzzled. Where Snape's body had fallen there was such a pool of blood and gore that it was impossible that Snape could have survived Nagini's attack. It was as they were trying to understand what could have happened when a bang startled the two to whirl about with wands drawn, still running off adrenaline and ready to battle. Aberforth Dumbledore stood in the door to Snape's death room, beard and hair a frizzled nest, glasses cracked, familiar blue eyes narrowed suspiciously.

Hermione remembered the old man asking why she and Harry were there, and Harry asking the same question to the last surviving Dumbledore, as well as inquiring about Snape. Hermione remembered that Aberforth's voice was nothing like his brother's, and how it jarred her more than the sight of blood and gore behind her.

'The body? Snape? I buried him in the Forest… I came back to clean up,' the old man had muttered quickly and nearly incoherently.

She recalled Harry growing angry, but his exhaustion kept him from acting or even questioning the old barkeep further. She remembered putting an arm about his waist and urging him out of the room and toward a bed to rest. The question of how to honour Snape did not come until much later, and by that time Hermione had begun to forget and did not think of the illogical inconsistencies with Aberforth's stilted response to Harry's question.

She felt ashamed. It was unlike her to forget something potentially important, if not mysterious. In fact, the more she thought about it, there was a great deal that seemed amiss in her mind. How could she not remember Snape, or the fact that his body had conveniently been buried by, of all people, Aberforth Dumbledore. Perhaps more puzzling: where had the old man buried it? It was impossible to know, as Aberforth Dumbledore had died two years after the War, leaving the Hog's Head to his favorite goat.

A distant chime of a clock from the market crossing in the village brought Hermione back to the present, and looked to the clear sky and the slowly awakening stars. It was growing darker later, but in the Highlands summer could be slow in coming. Hermione turned to return to the village and gather up her stray lambs, as she was sure there were some left in the village, desperate to hang onto a wonderful day in the village.

The walk back to Hogwarts with the last of her students running ahead of her on the road was cold and lonely. The ghost of Snape's memory followed her, and she found she could not rid herself of him and what she _could_ remember about him… It was those depthless black eyes, abysses to an even darker inside where the true soul was obscured in the blackness that filled her mind.

The road bent close to the edge of the Forest and already the sun was setting far behind the mountains to the west, casting the underbrush in darkness. Fifty yards down the road, a group of Slytherin boys were walking, their progress toward the castle slowing as their eyes were pointed toward the Forest. Hermione hesitated, glancing into the dark herself.

She could hear Hagrid's voice distantly up the road, and felt a bit of comfort that he had agreed to chaperone on this weekend visit. However, the tone of her old friend's voice was not quite right to her ears, though she could not hear his words. Hagrid was agitated, and then there was a faint whimper from a female student further up the road.

Suddenly, all thoughts of Hagrid, the whimpering, Snape, the Shack, and the past were blasted from her brain as one of the boys, a Sixth Year, drew his wand, his voice ringing out in shock. The blinding blaze of a hex flew into the dark under the trees and lit the form of an animal far larger than a man.

Hermione's muscles immediately bunched and then sprung forward in a remembered motion of defence as the hex slammed into the trunk of a pine, splintering the wood and bringing the tree down into the road and onto the confused and frightened group of boys. Her wand flew and cast out in a practised and precise movement, sending the tree crashing back into the Forest and away from her students.

The pounding of feet on the dried dirt road told Hermione that the students were fleeing, but another person was running down the road in long, heavy strides.

"'ermione!" Hagrid bellowed from around the bend, and Hermione turned to see her friend running toward her, his face and silver riddled beard dripping sweat. He had his pink umbrella in one massive hand and a wooden staff as large as a young growth tree in the other.

Hermione had only time to blink before a shrill cry filled her ears and forced her to turn.

The Sixth Year boy who had cast the hex was quickly disappearing into the dark of the Forest locked in the massive jaws of a beast. Hagrid had only just joined her before Hermione began after the student she was charged to protect. Of course, if she had had the time, Hermione would not have charged headlong into the dark of the Forest, but she had no other choice. All faculty members, upon their hiring, were required to take a vow to protect the students of Hogwarts, no matter house affiliation. This rule came into effect after the Tri-Wizard tournament and the elaborate and ingenious ruse by Barty Crouch Jr.

Hagrid soon fell behind, struggling with the underbrush to find a path to suit his girth. Hermione paid little mind to her old friend and colleague, following the frightened screams of her student, a boy she remembered that was a brilliant Quidditch player and part of a new generation of Slytherins born to half-blood parents. She would not see the boy harmed, and found she was taking on a new burst of speed, closing the distance between the beast and herself.

Then, the screaming stopped, as well as a sound she had not identified before, but realised was the sound of growling and the dragging of the boy's body along the Forest floor. In a relatively clear and level area between the trees, Hermione found the boy on the ground, whimpering and bleeding from the left shoulder where sharp teeth had bitten down to drag the boy far deeper into the Forest than Hermione would have dared go so late in the day.

"Pro-professor?" the boy gasped, his face ashen, his dark hair matted to his sweaty forehead. It only by the last ambient light in the sky that Hermione could see the oozing of the boy's blood under his weekend garb of a white button down shirt and denims. Hermione chanced lighting her wand, knowing that if the beast were true to its nature as a predator, it was not far from its live kill.

The sound of Hagrid struggling in the Forest was moving away from the small clearing, but Hermione did not shout out or wave her lit wand. Instead, she stood over her student, using her wand light to search the edge of the clearing for the beast.

A hush fell over the Forest, and Hermione began to fear for the student behind her. If the student's injuries were too severe, the emergency Portkey all faculty had to the Hospital Wing might do more harm than good to the boy. Hermione knew that she only had to draw the phial shaped Portkey from her trouser pocket and grab onto the boy to be away from the Forest and inside the sanctuary of the castle. Of course, this only would happen if she were fast enough to activate the Portkey before the beast attacked. She knew it was watching and waiting, she could feel its presence with her hypersensitive nerves and seemingly unending supply of adrenaline.

Then, it happened, just as the boy began to cough wetly. The beast burst from the underbrush, but not as fast as Hermione had anticipated. Her wand tip flared, blinding the beast until it stumbled back a pace and Hermione was allowed her first proper view of what nearly and still possibly mortally wounded her student.

As she had surmised before, the beast was far too large to be a simple woodland creature. The shape of the creature was that of a dire wolf or a gigantic dog, its fur as black as pitch, and its jaws and barred teeth bloody. However, the lupine creature, Hermione decided, blinked away its blindness and did not move to attack again. Instead, the beast stared at her in her wand light, its eyes like twin black holes ready to suck her down into oblivion. As hypnotic as those feral eyes were, Hermione knew that if she did not act, she too would need the Hospital Wing.

A large, wet, black nose sniffed the air, but Hermione did not move. If she needed to, she would kill this beast, begrudgingly, but with due haste.

The wolfish creature's fur stood on end as it began to growl deeply, but not in a menacing manner, but in warning. How Hermione came to understand this, she would never be able to logically know. There was something more to this creature than a beast's nature, and she could feel it as plain as she could the arboreal air playing across her bare outstretched wand arm. A long pink tongue rolled from between its teeth and the creature seemed to shudder before taking a slow step backward, then another and another until all Hermione could see of the beast was its massive head through the underbrush. Hermione's spine stiffened as the growl turned into the most pathetic whine and then a yip before Hagrid burst into the clearing behind her. The beast was gone.

Hermione sucked down a lungful of air, realising that she had been holding her breath ever since the beast had appeared before her. Hyperventilating, she bent over, her hands on her knees.

Hagrid saw to the boy first, finding that the student had lost consciousness, but was breathing normally. Then, Hagrid gathered Hermione against his large frame forcing what air she could take in from her body in an embrace. After ascertaining she was safe, Hagrid began to question Hermione, but Hermione could only stare at the Forest floor in the light of her wand, unsettled by something she could not identify until after sitting down on a cot next to the Sixth-Year's place in the Hospital Wing.

Deep onyx black eyes had stared at her, considering her, and calling to her. Something had happened, something _was_ happening, and Hermione could not help but pursue the answer to a question seemingly planted into her brain by a creature that was obviously magical and potentially lethal in nature.

Why did this creature call to her, and what could it want from her?

Mr. Belby had been terribly wounded, but with time and potions, he would mend quickly, but nothing, not even strong magic could hide the scars left behind from the vicious bite of an unknown animal. Hermione could not feel relief for her student as the need to understand why he was attacked pushed all other concerns from her brain.

That night, Hermione could only sleep fitfully, waking often from dreams that troubled her to the point of consciousness. The dreams were vague, and foreign to her unconscious mind as if something outside her own brain was orchestrating what images her mind was to see. This lack of control was what roused her, and the frustration that followed the restless sleep only reminded Hermione of a time fourteen years before when the weight of a war seemed to put everything into harsh focus. Yet, there were only the vague dreams for Hermione and the anger that she could not prevent a student from being hurt.

* * *

The day after the attack, Hermione and Hagrid were summoned to the Headmistress' office to recount their experience. The Ministry had not been called, not yet, and this puzzled Hermione. Of course, she was only learning about sightings of a wolf slash bear-like creature and other strange creatures and sounds from Hagrid as they walked to the spiral moving staircase. He explained that a Third-Year Hufflepuff walking along with Hagrid had spotted the beast first, seeing only its white and wicked teeth before realising that she was being stalked. Hagrid had shouted out at the beast, apparently startling it and sending it down along the edge of the road toward the Slytherin students.

"Never hurt anyone but scared 'em. I don't think this is the same beast as before, but there must be a reason why it would hurt a student," Hagrid said as he lifted Hermione off the stair and onto the office threshold before the stair stopped moving. "Something must've happened in the Forest, the Centaurs have been moving a lot lately…"

Hermione noted Hagrid's mention of the Centaurs and promptly filed the information into her brain, knowing that she would be able to recall it later.

Into the office, Hermione blinked up at Dumbledore's portrait automatically and nodded to the oil representation, which nodded in return. The other Headmasters and Headmistresses were awake and watching Hermione and Hagrid as they crossed the room to stand before Minerva McGonagall's desk. All but one, which had not moved since Hermione had first seen it at her arrival at Hogwarts the year before, waited with hushed anticipation.

"I will keep this brief, my friends," Minerva began, her voice as aged as her body had become in the years since the War. "I am hesitant to Floo the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. However, it must be done soon. Mr. Belby has given me his version of events and claims he has been bitten by a werewolf."

Hermione could not hold back a snort. It was weeks before full moon, and she knew for a fact that no werewolf in the world looked like the creature that attacked the student. There was something most definitely peculiar about the beast, and she knew that no animagus alive and registered had such a form. Hermione had made it common practise to keep abreast of registered and some unregistered animagi since Pettigrew and Skeeter. There were only five registered animagi, one of which was sitting before Hermione that very moment, and five unregistered that she knew of, none of which had such a memorable form as a black dire wolf, or dog, or canine-bear hybrid.

"Given his claim, which has been conveyed to his parents, I must contact the Ministry by tomorrow evening…"

Hermione frowned as something inside her brain was adamantly protesting Ministry involvement. Logically, the Ministry would be called to investigate, but Hermione felt more and more that such interference would be disastrous. Her frown deepened, which caught Minerva McGonagall's keen eye.

"Is there something you wish to say, Miss Granger?"

Hermione pursed her lips and glanced up to Hagrid who seemed to be just as wary of the Ministry as she was becoming.

"I…" she began, but found she was at a loss for words. Slowly, in almost a whisper, something told her what to say next, and Hermione did not resist the urge to move her lips and speak. It was only after Minerva McGonagall glanced to Dumbledore's portrait, smirking, did Hermione realise what had come from her mouth.

"I _would_ like to try to speak to Magorian again, patch up relations," Hagrid admitted, winking at Hermione in approval.

Had she just suggested that she and Hagrid investigate? Oh Merlin, she had, and Hermione immediately felt ill. Deep inside, a seed had germinated, a seed that had only begun as an urge to move, to go into the Forest. Now it was as if she were hearing voices, voices that compelled her to speak words that were not her own…

Was this how Harry felt before severing the connection to Voldemort?

Hermione swayed on her feet, but caught herself from falling by grasping Hagrid's coat sleeve. After waving off words of concern, she sighed and righted herself. What was said was said, and Hermione knew that her own curiosity would not let her mind rest, let alone having some magical compulsion to run into the Forest in search of the creature.

So, after confirming that she and Hagrid had a morning and afternoon to enter the Forest and do some precursory investigation before the Ministry arrived, Hermione walked alone to her rooms near Gryffindor Tower, cursing herself under her breath all the while. There had been plenty of adventure and excitement in her youth, as a middle aged woman, she had hoped that she could settle into a peaceful life, free of real danger. Alas, it seemed as though trouble found her, and as always, she would face trouble head on and, hopefully, come out all safe in the end.

* * *

Hermione's dreams were solidifying in her unconscious mind and she dreamt about the Forest, as it was forefront on her mind lying down in her bed that night. Hermione's memories of the Forest were bittersweet, but murky. There had been Third Year, running for her life from a werewolf, and there had been Fifth Year leading Umbridge to Grawp only to encounter the Centaurs. There were a handful of other moments in her life that the Forest had hidden her, but each time she had to fight back the urge to be frightened of the wild of the Forest. She could not understand such an entity as the Forest, and it was an entity in her mind—wild, illogical, and unforgiving.

Hermione dreamt of running through the underbrush, fleeing the darkness of the beast that pursued her relentlessly. She could hear the panting of the beast and the fall of paws larger than her head. The underbrush of her dreams was riddled with thorns and tangles, catching her skin and her ankles making it difficult to run. It was also the dark that impeded her escape until she could feel the heat of breath against her back and smell the heady scent of the Forest coming from the beast.

Then she was down, caught in the brambles and pinned beneath the black beast, eyes as deep as hell burning into her own.

Hellhound…it was the only word that came to her unconscious mind…hellhound.

The beast was male and near her knees the pink head of its organ poked through the course and damp black fur, moist and growing erect as Hermione began to struggle against her natural fetters. The beast sniffed her breasts, bare in her dream as if by fear, whatever had covered her nakedness had simply evaporated. Hermione could not close her eyes, and could only watch as a long tongue licked her skin dryly, terribly sharp teeth grazing her ribs as a cold nose brushed against her nipples.

Hermione tried to scream, fight, anything to be free, but nothing seemed to work to keep the beast from lowering its body down against hers. The weight was odd, not as heavy as she anticipated a beast of such size to be. Instead it was the weight of a man, the girth of a man, and then, the shape of man as the beast shifted into a human shape just as black but indistinguishable in features as any man in particular. The body felt like cool glass, smooth and lifeless. A shadow moved against her, pressing her back into the thorns as its hips insinuated themselves between her thighs.

A mouth closed over her own and all Hermione could see was black. If the movement had been a kiss, it was the most passionless kiss Hermione had ever known. Black hands grasped her throat and a hard penis wiped against her body, cold and wet. Hermione gasped as the thrust of penetration sent stinging waves of pain through her belly. The hands about her throat tightened and she found that she could not begin to breathe. Coupled with the cold hardness in her lower belly, Hermione felt as if her insides were about to shatter like the glass the shadow was made of.

Just as she began to believe that she was dying, she could breathe again. With precious air came delicious pleasure as the cold organ thrusting in and out of her body grew warm and real. Arms embraced her, pulling her close as if she were cherished and fragile. Hermione choked a groan as lips, warm and soft, kissed her throat, erasing the ache of near suffocation. She could not see her lover, but she could feel his skin against her own and the soft brush of chest hair against her breasts. She could taste the Forest in his kisses and the pulsing need for completion with every deep movement. Hermione strained to touch, but not even her will could make the dream release her wrists or allow her to wrap her legs about the slim hips sliding against her own.

Words were spoken, but not aloud. Hermione could feel the prodding of communication in her mind, words uttered by an internal voice that had penetrated her brain just as her lover's organ had.

Save me, find me; love me, please, please, please….the voice whispered, but Hermione could not question why it needed to be saved or found.

She, instead, pleaded to see, pleaded to be able to touch, but was never heard or acknowledged. She could only arch her back and grasp her fingers to attempt to reach for his face and feel her way to understanding who it was that had frightened and delighted her all in one dream.

Waiting for you…save me, find me, love me…her lover whispered, and Hermione could only promise in the dark and silence that she would. Yet, she wondered how she could save anyone when she could not know whom it was that needed finding and saving.

But like all dreams, it came to an end just before Hermione could find her completion or answers, and she lay awake in her bed, shivering and gasping, her body taut and aching. The compulsion to go into the Forest was overwhelming her, for in the Forest was something or someone who needed her more than anyone had ever needed her—this she knew from the lingering whispers of her dream. So desperate was this creature that it would rape and pleasure her, hate and love her at the same time. Hermione felt this desperation with every taut fibre of her being, and as she rolled over to find her alarm clock, she found that morning was not as far away as she thought.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Two**_

Seeing Horace Slughorn outside of his chambers or the laboratories was nearly enough for Hermione to think that perhaps she was indeed losing her mind. It was just before dawn and Hermione was still chewing on a wedge of toast as she approached Hagrid's rebuilt hut when she came upon Horace Slughorn sitting on the doorstep sipping tea from Hagrid's crude tea service in the gray pre-dawn light.

Hagrid was adjusting a quiver of arrows for the crossbow strapped across back, and Hermione paused in her chewing to be suddenly addressed by Slughorn who was dressed in a heavy fur cloak with his tea sending steam into his sly green eyes. Horace had aged poorly and Hermione knew that a favour, a very large favour, was needed for Horace to leave the confines of the castle and risk damaging his health further with the damp and cool air.

"I had heard that you will be heading into the Forest this morning, Miss Granger…" was how it began. It ended with Hermione carrying a small leather bandolier with case, two small silver knives, and a dozen collecting phials, all on the off chance that she come across anything 'interesting, and potentially valuable.' There was also a joke to beware of Tam Lin and Fae tricks, but Hermione was far too annoyed with her colleague to think of his words. How Slughorn had been so prepared to ambush her, Hermione was not exactly sure. Hagrid had only mentioned that he was going to investigate the student's attack in the Forest to the elderly professor only that morning.

As it was, Hermione, being the congenial and accommodating freshman faculty member, felt she must oblige whether she were actively looking for potion ingredients or not. In her mind, she most likely would not be paying much attention to the varied flora, mosses, and fungi the Forest had to offer. No, she was far more concerned with finding something else entirely different.

Upon rising that morning after her dream, Hermione was hesitant, and naturally so. Her morning routine changed to include a few self-diagnostic spells to detect curses and hexes, both of which she was not suffering under. Her mind was untouched by magic, and though she had doubted her memory, none of her spells indicated memory tampering of any sort. Then again, she would have rather had Madame Pomfrey or Minerva McGonagall perform the diagnostics… There was little time, and the growing sense of desperation was forcing her to move faster, speak less, and focus on a feeling that was beginning to overtake her limbs, foregoing all else, even Horace's words. It took all of her will to allow her to keep on the path behind Hagrid to attempt a meeting with the Centaurs. Her boots wanted to veer off the path and into the lingering darkness of the Forest heading northeast and away from the known regions of the Forest.

Hagrid had told her long ago that there were regions of the Forest that no witch or wizard had penetrated. There were invisible borders that kept creatures of the Forest in place and kept relative peace under the canopy of pine and oak, yew and willow. The Centaurs were, for all intents and purposes, the rulers of the Forest nearest the castle, but in no way rulers of the Forest at large. There were other creatures, some self aware, some merely beast, that roamed the Forest floor and had no qualms about killing humans, or half-giants for that matter.

Hermione had felt the danger for the Forest the first time she ever set foot into its confines the night Hagrid had led her, Ron, Harry, and Draco Malfoy to their midnight detention her First Year. She did not take the Forest for granted, and though her urges told her to head northeast, she kept close to her old friend.

It was cold in the Forest, and Hermione shuddered occasionally under her light weight green cloak despite the self regulating heat and cooling charms embedded into the weave. Hermione had dressed practically for her trek, even pulling her long curls back into a quick and sloppy plait. Just as a curl came loose and fell into her eyes, Hagrid had stopped suddenly before her, sending Hermione walking into his massive back. Hermione nearly fell, but caught herself with quick footwork.

She did not ask why they had stopped, for Hagrid had told her just before entering the Forest, that it was best she keep quiet. It was little surprise that when Hermione peeked around Hagrid's clenched fist that a Centaur was standing just before them, arrow trained on Hagrid's large head.

"You have been told to never seek us out, Rubeus Hagrid," the Centaur said, its dark eyes moving to Hermione.

Hermione was unsure if it was because Hagrid was not alone, but was relieved to see the male Centaur lowered his bow slightly. This male Centaur was older, as was evident from the gray in its dark hair and beard, but Hermione knew that if the Centaur had truly meant to harm either herself or Hagrid it would not have revealed itself.

"My sincerest apologies, mi' lord, but I would not have come without a very important reason," Hagrid said smoothly, his large hands moving into a gesture of submission and peace, palms upward.

The Centaur glanced to Hermione once more and seemed to smirk though the shape of a Centaur's face did not allow much expression that could be interpreted as humans would interpret a smile.

"The black beast, we assume?" the Centaur asked, putting emphasis on 'we.'

Hagrid nodded. "A child was attacked this time, though no beast in the past, if it is the same one, has dared come close before."

"It is the same beast, though it can take several forms."

Hermione bit her lip, knowing that there was no precedence for a shape-shifting magical creature other than a werewolf or a veela, and the beast that she had encountered was neither creature.

"Has it attacked Centaurs?" Hagrid asked, strains of true concern in his voice.

The Centaur blinked slowly, also noticing the strain in Hagrid's voice, but continuing without acknowledgment. "No, but it is a danger to us, one that we recognise and respect. This creature is cursed with a magic far more powerful than any a witch or wizard could understand, and perhaps because of the nature of this curse the beast has begun to seek out its own for help."

Hermione frowned. "Seek out its own? You mean it is a man?"

The sound of her voice was startlingly loud compared to Hagrid's rumbling timbre and the Centaur's smooth and precisely enunciated English. She almost wished she could stuff her words back into her mouth as Hagrid turned to allow the Centaur to see her fully, his startled reaction telling her that he had been far too focused on the Centaur to remember her at all.

The Centaur considered her again, and after what seemed like an eternity, answered.

"It was, but time and magic have changed it into something else. The beast is under the purview of our great enemy to the east, an enemy that has, until recently, kept well behind their borders."

She did not understand, and perhaps she was never to understand, being human. Her confusion, however, was noticed by the Centaur, which, without Hermione understanding why, took pity on her and her ignorance.

"The Pale Ones, they rule to the east, one of the last refuges for their sort, and one of the last gateways to their Undying Lands."

"And this beast, it has retreated to the east?" Hagrid asked, hoping to steer the Centaur's interest away from Hermione, and back to the subject of the beast.

The Centaur's dark eyes turned to Hagrid again and Hermione was left to her thoughts as Hagrid turned to shield her from the Centaur's gaze.

"Yes. Our scouts have tracked the beast back beyond the unseen border. Now that we have word that the beast has attacked a human, we have no reason not to believe that our kind will be next. The beast has lost all sense it once had as a human and must be dealt with before there is further violence."

Hermione shivered. The Centaur was wrong, the beast was sentient, but it was desperate. More important than the compulsion the beast had conveyed was the fact that the beast had once been a man. She closed her eyes and snorted, not realising that Hagrid had thanked the Centaur and the creature was slowly retreating into the trees.

"It feels like old times," she whispered to herself before Hagrid turned and patted her atop the head, which brought even more nostalgia to Hermione's brain.

"What's that?" Hagrid asked.

Hermione opened her eyes and smiled toward the ground. "Nothing… Should we go?"

Hagrid nodded and began ahead, feeling less hesitant and less ill at ease. Hermione smiled at her old friend's wide back.

It felt like old times because she knew she was about to do something stupidly noble again. And with that thought and Hagrid several paces ahead, Hermione stepped off the path and into the underbrush without making a sound.

* * *

Consulting a Point Me spell, Hermione headed northeast with haste. The sun was rising quickly and the shadows under the trees became smaller and darker. Hermione felt only a pang of guilt for leaving Hagrid, but if she were to ease her mind she would go and go quickly. Hagrid would only hold her back for thoughts of her safety.

Finding this creature, now knowing that it was indeed a man trapped in the form of a beast, only made her imperative stronger. The man inside had planted an unconscious compulsion in her brain that quickly became conscious impetus. Hermione knew that whatever or whomever the man was inside the beast it was a wizard.

There was also the matter of what the centaur called the 'Pale Ones.' Hermione had never heard of such a thing, but logically knew that if there was a being able to curse a man to take the form of a beast, magic was involved and this magic could also trap her against her will.

She paused atop a knoll, realising that 'will' had everything to do with what had happened since Mr. Belby was attacked on the road to Hogwarts. The desperation she felt from the beast was the will to be free. Whether it was to be free of beast form or free from a place or a person, humanity had a strong desire, nay will, to be free. The attack on the student and the years of sightings had to have been the only way a cursed man could arouse enough curiosity to bring someone in close, someone like herself that could be contacted for aid.

It made sense to Hermione, though how she had managed to be the one to attempt to give aid was not as nearly comprehensible. How had the creature enter her mind and implant the compulsion to throw caution to the wind in order to help? The man could not have known who she was or her personality could it? Then there were the dreams, as vague and as arousing as they had been—it had all been foreign to her waking brain, and the memory of the beast becoming a man had far more meaning to Hermione at that moment. It was a fairy tale, she thought as she walked through the Forest with general ease, it was a fairy tale crafted for her alone.

Hermione was jogging along the Forest floor, finding the further northeast she moved, the less underbrush there was. The trees had grown larger, older, and pillar like with canopies of leaves that only allowed limited sunlight through. Hermione had little opportunity to appreciate the beauty of the Forest, but was aware of it and the sounds of life around her. Birds sang and woodland animals rustled the leaves on the Forest floor. The scent of damp and moss reminded her of her dream and the heady scent of the black beast.

The terrain grew more and more rugged with visible rock jutting up from the earth until Hermione was forced to divert her relatively straight trek northeast to avoid sheer rock faces and outcroppings. Yet, she moved confidently, without having to draw her wand from her cloak to know her direction.

Hermione frowned as she came to a corridor of stone that acted as a road to the northeast. She slowed her pace, feeling cold as she walked the canyon between limestone rock faces on a path that gently sloped upward and ever closer to her goal, whatever it may be. Hands traced the rock as she walked, but when her fingernails caught, Hermione stopped to find that her fingers hand combed black fur off the rough stone, thick and course.

With a violent shake, Hermione let the fur fall from her fingers to the damp ground under her boots. Fear was growing in her chest, as was reality.

What was she doing so far away from the safety of the castle?

Hermione looked back down the canyon and to the southwest, her mouth working as if to speak aloud the decision that she would abandon her quest and return to the logical world of the real. Closing her eyes, Hermione leaned against the limestone face and tried her best to relax. It would be far too easy to panic and fear, and Hermione could not stand that lack of self-control that came with fear and panic.

Her greatest fear was the loss of control, whether it was loss due to an external factor, or sudden loss of self-control, Hermione could not handle the thought of not being able to control her situation or her mind. This was why, despite the impetus to go on, Hermione finally found herself in a situation where she knew that her feelings were not exactly her own. She feared, and the fact that she felt fear made her angry.

Turning resolutely, Hermione would go on, deciding it was her choice to find the truth of the matter of a man trapped in the shape of a beast, and not because the man had somehow manipulated her to do so. Of course, deep down, she knew she was kidding herself. She was frightened, but the will imposed upon her was terrifyingly strong, and so she began to run toward the light at the end of the canyon.

As it happened, the canyon mouth ended in a steep slope with a drop down to a wide stream. Hermione could not have anticipated the drop and found that she was sliding on her backside down the slope toward the rocky stream. At the bottom, with her boots braced against a rock on the shore, Hermione's heart was in her throat, but her mind working. The stream, which was not deep but wide, ran roughly south and theoretically, to the Black Lake. If she were to follow it she would be able to find her way home, a thought that put her troubled mind at ease for no other reason than the thought of Hogwarts.

Merlin, she thought, what am I doing?

It was past midday, she knew, and the trek back would bring her to the castle well after sundown. The best she could do was to try to Apparate back to Hogsmeade if that were possible, but as she sat beside the clear and cool stream, she could feel there was something quite wrong. Standing, she looked across the stream and up the bank to a line of over large untamed yew trees appearing more like a natural barrier than anything she had seen so far in the far reaches of the Forest.

Yes, there…that something whispered inside her brain, and she found herself on her feet, a boot moving to enter the shallow stream and ford the water to the other side. Like dipping a toe into the Lethe, Hermione's fears were forgotten, and all that mattered was crossing the stream to the other side. The water wet her boots and socks, making every step heavier onto the rocky bottom, but she did not falter and did not lose her footing in the unassumingly swift current.

On the far shore, Hermione looked back to the slope she had slid down, seeing easily the path she could follow back, but not now…not now… She was so close, and turning, Hermione began her ascent from the stream and to the barrier of yews. Once to the top of the slope, she knew that she had to merely push through the dark green branches and arrive to the place she needed to be, and so, she stepped forward and through an unseen but palpable boundary.

What Hermione found on the other side of the thick yew trees was a sight that did not register in her brain right away. She stood, boots heavy with water, on a flagstone path between a bed of common daisies and wild strawberries. Beyond these wide beds were others planted with flowers and fruits, vegetables and fragrant herbs, massive bushes of rosemary and thickets of ivy, all of which could not and would never grow naturally in the depths of a Highland forest no matter how magical. Scattered among the flagstone paths only as wide as to let a person pass were groves of fruit and nut bearing trees. There were ponds that irrigated the beds thick with reeds and aquatic plants, all of which lay on gently rolling acres that spread out before and to either side of Hermione. The dark line of yews surrounded the garden, for lack of a better word in her mind, and the garden was as larger than could be seen from her vantage point.

Eden was the only name for it, and Hermione could not contain her awe. She was in a sacred place where the air was loaded with sweet fragrance, the wind warm against her face, and she felt as if her body were as light as that air that moved about her in a caress. The only thing holding her down were her heavy boots, which she immediately toed out of, leaving the muddy soled shoes and soiled socks at the point in which she entered the garden. The sun, which was shining down from behind wispy clouds, warmed the flagstones and, in turn, the soles of her aching feet.

How far had she trekked, she wondered, and immediately lost the thought as she began to move along the level path and further into the garden. She catalogued the beds, finding there was no logical order to the planting and that the beds varied in size. Hermione wondered about cross pollination and plant diseases as she walked along the short side of a bed of azaleas to her left and a bed of asparagus to her right, both just coming into season outside of the Forest and both growing unimpeded. Moving into a grove of plum trees and then into a grove of tangerines, Hermione considered that she might have hit her head on her tumble from the narrow limestone canyon and was dreaming the garden. Nothing could be so perfect in the waking world, yet she was not dreaming, stubbing her big toe on the edge of an uneven flagstone and letting pain act as sobering agent.

She smirked, looking down to her toe, realising that she was too warm with her cloak on, another clue that Hermione was not dreaming. Doffing her cloak and draping it over her arm, Hermione strolled past a pond filled with reeds and water lilies, the soft sound of frogs croaking filling her ears. There were other animal sounds, birds in the trees, the buzz of insects from somewhere unseen, and the twitter of small animals in the trees. Life was all around her, except the life that was responsible for planting and maintaining such an immaculate garden.

Passing a bed of Lady Slipper Orchids, rare and useful, Hermione's hand moved to the bandolier about her body and to the small collecting case Horace had given her. She doubled back and paused before the bed, enthralled by the sheer number of Lady Slippers in one place, a sight perhaps not seen in the modern era of endangered species and human encroachment on natural plant and animal habitats. The chance was far too fortuitous to pass up, and Hermione glanced about for the gardener to stop her from stepping her bare feet into the limed soil and to draw one of the small silver knives to begin harvesting a small amount of flowers. She would only take a few, she decided, and knelt gently between a natural row between the clumps, the sun catching her small knife and dazzling her eyes for a moment. Having abandoned her cloak to the flagstone path to move freely, Hermione felt as if she were about to do a great service for Horace Slughorn to which a great service would be owed to her in return.

A rush of sudden happiness took hold of Hermione and she felt that she could sing, though she had no talent for such a thing. There was something intoxicating about the garden and the scent of herbs and flowers, fruit and soil, that she was completely unaware of any danger. In fact, the garden was overwhelming Hermione's mind, her lungs, and body which was unaccustomed to such a volume of pollen that intoxication was the appropriate cause for her elation. There were a number of poisonous and potentially addictive plants in the garden, all of which were mingling its pollen into the air with the more benign species of plants. The high of intoxication erased any sense of danger, dulling her senses and making her movement to cut the stems of the Lady Slipper Orchids slow and imprecise. However, this sloppiness, uncharacteristic to Hermione's fastidious nature did not bother her in the least, even dropping her knife twice while placing the flower into her collecting case did not seem to disturb her happiness. It would take something far more unexpected to break the haze and warmth that filled her. Even as her knife slipped in her hand, slicing into her palm, Hermione could only sigh in mock discontent, not feeling pain, and not worrying about healing herself.

The spell of sweet bliss and warm indifference was suddenly broken by a pain and forceful jerking to her head as she was pulled up by the plait of the back of her skull and dragged out of the flower bed.

Hermione was slow to scream, but when she did, she realised with sudden clarity that she was in danger and this danger had a human face attached to a human body, attached to a human hand that lifted her off her feet and threw her with ease over beds of flower and herbs. Landing in a perfumed bed of wild spearmint, Hermione could no longer appreciate the fragrant air, as the oxygen in her lungs was knocked loose by her impact into the earth.

Then _he_ was upon her, and Hermione could not breathe and could not move, her wrists tangled in the thick herbs, her head aching and eyes swimming with black dots of disorientation. What she did see was blackness that shone in the sunlight like ink, and the seconds it took Hermione to understand what she was seeing felt like longer minutes.

Hair, long black hair was falling in curtains about her face and just above her eyes were a set of eyes staring down at her, startlingly wide and as depthless as…

Hermione struggled, her hands ripping up spearmint only to be slammed down into the dirt. Her arms were ripped upward above her head straining her shoulders, her wrists gathered into one large, rough hand while the other wiped blood across her left cheek, the blood that had begin to trickle from her sliced palm now stinging with belated pain. Fingers, nails long and sharp, traced her jaw and the outline of her lips with a tenderness so alien that Hermione began to thrash again, bare feet digging into the soil but unable to move her in any direction closer to safety.

She whimpered as the hand traced her throat. Long fingers wrapped about the column of her neck and Hermione felt that panic, so far repressed, rise up and take all reason left after her bewilderment of the garden. Hermione was left paralyzed, unable to see anything other than the hypnotic black eyes of a man who was beginning to squeeze the life from her body. Involuntarily, and as a sign that her brain was still functioning on some level, Hermione gasped for air, her attempts at breathing rustling the inky curtains blocking out the sunlight from her eyes. This brought a reaction from the man whose hand move away from Hermione's throat to her plain white cotton shirt, worn more for its comfort and less for its style. Buttons flew off in all directions, and Hermione coughed to fill her lungs with delicious air now sullied with the scent emanating from the man straddling her thighs to hold her down. There was a heady, musky scent coming from this man, the odour of sweat and work.

When his mouth brushed her lips, Hermione's eyes closed and her limbs began to thrash again. This displeased the man above her, and the pressing of lips to lips ended with a vicious bite, drawing blood from the plump flesh and causing Hermione scream feebly into her attacker's face. The bite to her fleshy lower lip had been a warning, but Hermione could not understand why she could not fight this man, and why suddenly her scream had left her body completely wrought out of energy. It had only been moments before that her body felt light and airy, but as her wrists were released, Hermione found she could not move to defend her body further.

Clothing was ripped off her body leaving friction burns, until all that remained was to strip her trousers and knickers from her ankles, but the man, who she could not open her eyes to see, only nudged her knees apart to press his slim hips between her thighs. The kiss that came next was cold and passionless, unpractised and awkward, and it was this similarity to her dream that forced Hermione's eyes to open.

What she found was a man whose glassy, wide eyes bored into her own. Those eyes had no feeling and no comprehension of her, and when the face pulled away to take in a mortal breath, Hermione's eyes began to water, blurring the hauntingly familiar face that stared down at her.

"Snape…" she whispered in a mixture of disbelief and relief, and closed her eyes again to squeeze away unwanted tears.

The sound of her voice sent a shiver through the man above her.

Opening her eyes again, the eyes staring down at her had changed, as did the resulting kiss which probed the depths of her mouth while hands touched and caressed, squeezed and stroked her skin and hair.

The desperation was familiar, and Hermione whispered another name between tears and growing fear.

"Severus…"

He was hard against her, a fact that she had unconsciously ignored until the utterance of his name. Lifting his body up onto straight arms, Hermione could see him more fully.

Dressed in only a pair of ragged black trousers, Hermione knew that the front was undone and the waist was pushed down over slim hips to allow his organ to rub between her labia in an instinctual gesture. His chest was wide and dark with black hair running along his developed pectoral muscles along his midline and to the thatch of curls above his thick penis. His arms were long and sinewy, the faded Dark Mark blackening the inside of his left forearm. It was his face, however, that forced Hermione to stare.

Severus Snape had not aged beyond the day he was supposedly murdered at age thirty-eight. In fact, his pale skin was not as sallow as she remembered, though his severe features were unchanged and wholly Severus Snape.

She wanted to ask him how it was possible that he as alive, but a rough thrust of a thick bulbous head against the tightening entrance to her body cleansed the lessening fear and growing puzzlement from her mind. Her body ached from the inside at the possibility of intercourse, and Hermione hated the base, instinctual reaction her body produced.

The fact was Severus Snape, very alive and very aroused, did not seem to recognise or care that he was about to penetrate Hermione Granger with his very hard and very large cock.

"Severus…" she said again, unable to add emphasis to his name in order to take his mind away from rutting. Instead, the sound of his name aroused him further and a soft groan passed between thin lips and into the air like a melody.

He kissed her again, and Hermione could taste cherries on his tongue, something that she was unable to discern before. His hands cradled her face as he thrust against her again, his knees planted into the spearmint and his chest brushing against her nipples.

The head of his cock stretched her as he forced himself inside, and Hermione gasped into his mouth, causing Severus Snape to growl in reply. Hermione's hand flew suddenly, clawing into his bare back before her nails ripped his skin as he roughly grasped her right wrist and pinned it to the herb bed again.

Her brain did not want this, did not want to play the part of the unwilling yet willing victim as she had in her dream. Hermione cried out his name again, back involuntarily arching as he did not wait for her body to accommodate the girth of the head and pushed inside with piercing force. He did not waste a movement, rocking on his knees to move in and out of her body, each breath from between his lips a choking grunt or a lusty and feral groan. He watched her face all the while, doubtlessly seeing her pain and her forced pleasure and not caring at all.

"Severus…" she whispered.

Her body wanted this, and slowly her brain, her conscience, allowed Hermione to relish the sensation of sex, a pleasure she had nearly forgotten. So many years of mental pleasure had made her forget the simplicity of physical pleasures—Hermione felt regret, and guilt at the spinsterhood she had nearly consigned herself to by forgetting.

"Severus…" again she whispered, this time her voice thick with a wanton she did not expect.

"Severus…" he repeated in a softer whisper, with no inflection of recognition in his voice. He simply gazed down at her, his nose only inches from her own. "Severus," he said again, and bent to rub his cheek against hers, inhaling the scent of her tangled hair, tongue licking out to trace her jaw.

Hermione closed her eyes, trying her best to ignore the growing heat in her belly, denying that she was so close to screaming out her climax. It was futile, as was most things dealing with raw sensation, and Hermione's head threw back as the connection was met and all logical thought, all fear, all hesitation was lost and her hips bucked wildly to meet his thrusts.

He choked and released her wrist to push at her hips to take control of the pace again to no avail. Severus Snape stiffened, mouth open in a silent howl, before collapsing on Hermione heavily, his face pressed to her throat. Hermione sobbed, so overcome by the intensity of her climax that she wanted to curl up against the man atop her and simply bask in the afterglow. The constriction of vaginal muscle and milking of a flagging organ spread the heat of a sticky dampness in her body and had Hermione shuddering.

It had been a long while since she had been intimate with anyone, having sex even longer, and the ache was immediate in her case, the natural stretching, the stiffness of her thighs and the ache in her still curled toes. Yet, as she lay in the soft spearmint and soil, Hermione Granger's body held Severus Snape, her hands moving to press against his sweaty back, her ankles curling her small feet around his legs. The slow slither of his half erect cock from her body sent tingles along her skin, as did the sensation of being full at a point in her body that had been devoid of anything for so long.

Severus Snape shifted against her, and then lifted himself in a startling movement to stare down at her sunlit face. Hermione blinked slowly and sleepily up at the dark man, her brain fuzzy around the edges. His gaze was hard, as if searching methodically through the jumble in her mind's eye.

The gentle prodding and poking inside her head did not alarm her immediately, and it was not until a violent motion reminded her of the fact that this man, no matter who he had been, was potentially dangerous, passionate, but never in her experience, kind. He had attacked her, he had, essentially, forced her, and as Hermione's body began to pool her remaining endorphins and adrenaline to fight or flee.

He moved faster than she, and before she could kick out, the weight of him off her thighs, he grasped her waist and pulled her toward where he knelt, lifting her hips high off the ground. Hermione cried out in shock as his face dove between her thighs to sniff and lick at her swollen core, a sensation that forced her eyes to roll back into her skull and her hands to dig into the soil on either side of his knees.

Hermione allowed his hands to position the backs of her knees over his shoulders and did not fight his assault on her body to lick and probe her flesh, sucking and nipping, licking and thrusting his tongue inside to drink down the sticky remains of a hard and brutal coupling. Instead, she groaned incoherent words, breathing his name in and out of her chest.

When she came, it was the last straw for her mind and body. He rummaged through her brain, pillaged her body, and sapped the moisture from her pores. As he lay her down in the ruined bed of spearmint, he kissed her and allowed her to drink from his mouth the bittersweet seed and saliva tinged with cherries.


	4. Chapter 4

_**Three**_

The Queen of the Fae was an ancient creature, wise and ruthless, and in her long life she had many dealings with humanity, but never felt anything more than the descendants of ape other than indifference. There were times when humanity could be useful and in this case, the Queen made deals with humans to get whatever it was her people needed or else indebted humans to the Fae through clever favours.

More often than not, the only thing the Fae needed of humans was their souls. The human soul was hard to come by easily as there were boundaries between their worlds and rules as ancient as the Fae themselves, that protected both sides. So it was usually with a great deal of cleverness and underhanded negotiations that the Fae could have a human soul. The appeal of a human soul was irresistible to the Fae who found the soul as fierce and bright as the sun and as powerful as their own magicks. Humans were, in the pale eyes of the Fae, stubborn, backward creatures whose only redeeming quality was their souls, separate from their bodies, to which the soul could be used as currency in the realms beyond human understanding. However, to the Queen of the Fae, a wild, passionate, and lively soul was best suited as a tithe to keep the powers of the Underworld, the only thing the Fae truly feared, at bay.

As it was, the Queen of the Fae had been fostering the liveliest of souls, kept prisoner in her magnificent and ever-living forest garden. This soul she acquired through the collection of a debt, and this soul she favoured above all others she had collected before- save one. This soul was that, of course, of Severus Snape, and how it came to be in the possession of the Fae was the makings of a 'fairy tale.'

It was Aberforth Dumbledore who, bound by a vow from his brother dead for over a year, saved Severus Snape from death. That night in May when Voldemort fought against the best of the Wizarding world, Severus Snape had played his role and had resigned himself to Hell. He was barely alive when Aberforth Dumbledore found him on the floor of the Shrieking Shack. Black eyes were gray with cataracts, and the gaping wound in his throat had stopped bleeding, yet his brain worked thoughts that took hours and his heart beat a rhythm that no one but the most skill physicians could detect. Yet, Aberforth Dumdledore, not the most skilled of wizards, healed Severus Snape to the best of his ability, and considered for a long while what to do with the man he was charged to save.

Aberforth Dumbledore was not the most typical of saviorus, and if he had had his choice he would have left Severus Snape to his ultimate end. In truth, Aberforth Dumbledore despised Severus Snape for good reason and would have liked nothing more than to kill his brother's murderer and leave the body to rot on the filthy and disgusting floor of an equally filthy and disgusting house. As it was, Aberforth had to find a way to 'save' Severus Snape, a man, who by all accounts should have died.

Then it came to Aberforth, a way to proverbially 'kill two birds with one stone,' and before he could find his fear of what it was he must do, he took the half dead man under the growing dark of the night of the Battle of Hogwarts, and Apparated to the Forest, deep into the wilds and far away from the War that was winding down outside its borders.

This is how Severus Snape was given to the Queen, as a payment for an old debt, and this is how Severus Snape became a commodity to be used when the time was right.

The Fae cured the man, and in doing so, cursed him to remain bound to the Forest, unable to escape and seemingly unable to stop what would eventually come—Teind. Every seven years the Fae paid their tithe to Hell, and upon the acquisition of a human soul to foster, the Queen of the Fae constructed her magic to make Severus Snape's soul livelier and more passionate than it had even been in the life he had outside of the Forest. The Queen read his life from his soul like reading words in a book, and upon curing him, found Severus Snape to be quite pitiful for having lived his life for other humans. His life, his loves, his hates, they stirred the Queen, and so, she spared his soul after seven years of captivity, but vowed that after fourteen, he would go where he was intended to go that night in May.

Severus Snape came to live alone in the Queen's garden, rarely molested by curious Fae, but sometimes used as an amusement to the Queen herself. The Fae were troopers, ever moving, ever conquering, and ever warring among other beings that humans would never know of beyond the threshold between the Forest and the worlds beyond. Thus, a live human was a curiosity, and potential amusement for the Queen's court. Severus Snape, disoriented, trapped, and defenceless could only obey the Queen's wishes.

Human magic had no place in the Fae world, and Fae magic had no logical explanation to a human mind. Severus could only endure the curious advances of the Queen who found Severus' dark eyes and hair a point of fascination, as well as his lean body and unattractive face. The Queen took liberties with the human, finding that the man could pleasure her in the manner that all sentient life found base pleasure—sex. The Queen kept Severus for seven years before having to decide whether to sacrifice him to the powers of the Underworld as tithe. Teind, it was called in the old tongue, and Severus feared the word.

On the night of All Hallows' Eve the Fae would troop beyond the Forests to a place unknown to humans though it laid so close to where they celebrated in their primitive manner. The Hell-mouth was where the tithe was taken and it was where Severus knew he would eventually go when the Queen tired of him and what he could do to pleasure her. As it was, the first seven years had endeared him to the Queen and he was spared only to live another seven years in perpetual fear. The Fae found his fear foolish and backward, but did nothing to allay his fear of the human idea of Hell.

To keep him captive, complex Fae magic was used. In the Queen's garden he could move as the man he had been, but ageless, preserved, and invulnerable to anything that could potentially take away his fragile life before Teind. He was allowed to eat of anything in the garden, tend it, of course, and keep it living while the Queen was away. If he crossed beyond the boundary of the garden, he would not be able to escape the Queen. A border of twisted, wild yew trees marked the garden's borders and a step beyond those deathly trees transformed the man into a beast, from which the Queen believed humans descended. The form was usually large and threatening, made to look so to keep Severus from escaping notice if he were to attempt to leave the Forest. In fact, the Forest was where he was the safest, for as another condition, the Queen made it so that if Severus were to cross beyond the Forest he would begin to lose all self-awareness and truly become a beast. All routes to escape were blocked, and Severus faced to possibilities—face Hell, or face oblivion by leaving the Forest. Neither option appealed to a man who had, for the majority of his life, lived for someone other than himself, whose purpose was tied to another's and to which true freedom was only ever an illusion.

Severus had lost a great deal of his memory from the life before, but what nearly dying could not erase was the sensation of having lived a pitiful life in the service of others. Upon healing, and learning the nature of his new predicament, he vowed never to be used again. And so, after finding conventional means of escape futile, he turned to the power of his desperation, and with his lively, valuable soul, called out.

The Fae underestimated the power of human magic and in their arrogance, did not notice that Severus' call had reached someone who had the ability to save him. The Fae also underestimated Severus' cleverness and ability to outwit their magic by bringing another human into the Queen's sacred garden. Arrogance, of course, is the reason the Fae no longer trooped the human world, though none of the ancient ones would claim to it. It would be their arrogance that would save Severus Snape.

Severus had been a specimen of the Fae, but all the while, the Fae had been observed by one of the most brilliant minds of the Wizarding world, and while Severus had his doubts and his depressions, his effort to be free had proved fruitful. He would use the human woman he had called to find a way out of the Forest and far away from the cloying scent of Fae magic.

As it was, the human woman was sleeping in his bower, unperturbed by the fact that All Hallows' Eve was soon approaching. Severus, however, was beginning to remember how it was to be near a human woman. The bruises on her wrists had already faded due to the garden's magic, but to see such a shade of purple on a woman's skin had reminded him how fragile humans truly were. He was not sorry that he had to be so forceful, but he regretted that he had to behave like an animal to satisfy himself.

As soon as the woman had entered the garden, he had sensed her. He could smell her sweat and feminine odour whereas Fae had none. He could hear her remove her shoes and walk along the flagstones whereas Fae made no noise and seemed to glide with every step. He had run from his bower to see her, and upon finding her among the Lady Slippers, he watched her until an instinct buried so deep in his soul forced him to move.

Perhaps he truly was a beast.

This woman was alive, she was human, and every movement of her hand to cut the Queen's lovely Lady Slippers had sent shocks of need down to his burgeoning cock. The scent of her sweat was arousing, as it was sweet, and was surely sweeter on the tasting. He had not seen a human with his human eyes for so long. The hours spent watching the castle beyond the Forest, watching the small humans, children, did not compare. This woman was matured, ripe, womb alive, attractive. He stifled a groan as he watched her from behind the camellias, and before he soiled his ragged trousers with his seed, he moved.

She fought him with all her might and when innate her magic did not work, she fought harder. The fight nearly sent Severus over the edge as the fight had her pressing her warm, living body against his, and he, in his haste, bruised and hurt her.

Then she spoke. He ignored her words, which sounded like a name that had not been spoken in some time. There was shock and reverence in her voice, and he, in his delirium to be inside this living woman, repeated her words until, after she had closed her eyes from exhaustion and forced satiation did he remember where this name belonged.

The Queen never called him by his name; no Fae did; yet, he knew his name, given to him by his human mother whose face was nothing more than a faded memory. He knew what he name was, but to hear it spoken aloud by a strangely beautiful and magnificent woman… Severus began to study her sleeping face all the while he carried her and her ruined clothing to his bower.

Even as night fell, belying the true time, he knew he had met this woman before in some other place. Of course, it did not matter when it came down it, she would be the one to free him from the Fae, whether she was willing to or not. He would do anything to make her free him, and he knew, as he had been planning it for years, exactly how he would have this woman save him. Yet, there was still time, and in that time he would take this woman again and again until he remembered what it was to be a man.

* * *

Night had come, and he felt her wake as if there was suddenly a button pushed that alerted him to the presence of another conscious mind. In the moonlight of an impossibly full yellow moon, he watched her dress and to try to mend her clothes with the twig she had been carrying. A wand, yes, a wand, he remembered that now and idly wondered where his was… He found amusement in her facial expressions when she realised that her magic did not work in the Queen's garden, and found more amusement when she tried to tie her ripped shirt shut about her waist.

Severus watched as she moved from the shelter of his bower to the rocky edge of the pond just below the hollow willow he used. He watched as she knelt down to cup crystalline water into her small, healed hand and drink. Her hair had come loose and fell in wild curls about her shoulders, the moonlight catching a few silver strands mixed in the caramel brown mass. He then observed her surprise that the wound in her palm had disappeared. Severus sniffed, knowing what she did not.

Time moved differently in the Queen's garden, and though he had grown accustomed to determining the odd progression, he knew that this woman would not understand. He had wanted to whisper into her mind as she slept, tell her about how he had come to this point, but she would not remember having been in a deep, healing sleep. However, it seemed that by touching her mind to 'eavesdrop' into a working human brain, he had begun to remember a great deal about things that had been muddled for over fourteen years.

Her name was Hermione Granger, and he remembered that name though the face that was being washed in the pond did not correspond to what his brain recalled. Fourteen years, he had to remind himself, fourteen years of living in limbo, always threatened with Hell.

How was he to explain it to her?

He had been musing far too long for when his eyes focused upon the woman again she was walking toward him, a small silver knife in her hand. Severus had collected her belongings, but thought little of the small knife he recalled was used for the gathering of herbs and flowers.

She did not see him, but passed very close by and into the shadow of the cherry orchard where he had been observing her. Severus continued to watch her as she moved through pools of moonlight on the soft ground under the fruit laden boughs. The way Hermione Granger moved told him that she was entranced by the garden, he had been just as entranced at first, before he knew his role in the grander scheme of things.

Severus watched her hand reach to pluck ripe cherries from a low hanging branch, and he watched as she licked her lips softly in anticipation. She was beautiful. Yet, no matter how attracted he was to her, he knew that Hermione Granger would never be willing to consider him as anything more than a man who had died a long time ago, a man who had been anything but likable.

Her mouth opened to eat and before she could taste, Severus had moved, slapping the fruit from her hand and into the dark. He had almost forgotten, so enamoured with thoughts of her mouth flitting through his mind in a matter of milliseconds, that his brusque action sent the woman back into a fighting stance, moonlight glinting off the small blade in her left hand.

How he had forgotten how to act as a human, for if he had remembered he would have kept his distance from her instead of rushing at her, slamming her small body into the rough trunk of a tree while the silver knife slipped into his flesh just above his navel. She let out a small shriek, her brown eyes wide in the moonlight, her left hand jerking the knife away to let it fall with a soft thud into the soil under her feet.

"You cannot eat the fruit of this garden unless you want to stay here like me, trapped…" he whispered angrily, his breath rustling her curls.

He was angry that she did not know, but in being angry Severus only perpetuated his lack of humanity. Human logic, after fourteen years, was growing thin, and instead, he turned his anger in on himself for being so irrational.

"But I… I…" she stuttered her eyes moving down his chest to the oozing wound in his gut.

Severus' hands held her shoulders back into the tree, and he could watch her, the shock of his warning and his wounding sending her mental walls crumbling. She had been occluding her mind in anticipation of his assault. Hermione Granger considered him a mad man, and Severus could not necessarily dispute this opinion.

Legilimency and occlumency, it was something that was left untouched in this garden. He had forgotten the name of the art, but found it again when he touched Hermione Granger's mind just as he came to remember the names of a great many things. He also remembered that this sort of magic was not affective on the brains of the Fae as their thoughts seemed to be either too high or nonexistent when he had the chance to observe them.

In the few moments that it took to see the past fourteen years of her life outside of the Forest, he knew that perhaps it was providence that she had been the one to come at his call. Hermione Granger had been waiting for someone to need her again.

In the years of the War she had taken pride that she had been indispensable to her friends and allies. She had purpose and she had satisfaction in believing that after the War she would be beloved for all time by the two men who had been her family, her lovers, and her self made purpose for living.

Oh how naïve she had been then… Nothing lasted forever, she found, not even love, and when it came time to find a life for herself, Hermione Granger tasted failure again and again. Then the day came when she realised that she was not necessarily indispensable or even liked, and in order to move beyond dwelling on this fact, she began living for herself. It was a simple life with small pleasures and small satisfactions—teaching and learning. She was well on her way to spinsterhood, and Hermione Granger found that this fact began to bother her less and less as time went by, yet she still entertained romantic notions like any woman would…

Suddenly, Severus was forced out, and his fingers curled into her small shoulders sending a gasp from her lips. His eyes focused on her face, seeing that she was no longer startled, and with a slow exhale and blink, he did something very unlike the 'himself' that Hermione Granger remembered. Severus embraced her gently, relishing the warmth and substance of her living body. She stiffened, baffled, but did not resist.

"What is this place?" she said into the dark curtain of his hair

Her voice was like music to his ears, real and appropriate, exact and demanding.

He hesitated internally as his arms released her, and then, as if remembering how to do it, he spoke without rushing his words or shouting.

"A garden, obviously."

Ah, yes, he remembered. The snark in his tone of voice, the condescension of elder to junior, the witty insults… There was more, but he knew his mind could not handle it all while the time was so short and there was so much to tell this woman.

His answer had her eyes narrowing, and she bit into her lower lip in hesitation. When she released her lip, it was to speak haltingly.

"You…you were the one who…who…called me? You attacked a student to…to… Your wound…it is healed…"

He sighed softly. She had heard him and that was the only reason she had come. It was out of curiosity and duty, and not for any other reason. Surely, by attacking a child he had aroused unwanted suspicion, but his risky tactic had worked—she had come.

"Yes," he said simply to her faltering words. It was a one-syllable word, but it was enough.

Her eyes moved to his and for a moment the wall crumbled again and Severus could see the confusion and hurt in her mind's eye. She could not understand how it was that he was alive and why it was that he had attacked her, hurt her, and forced her to consider that the encounter was not rape… She had been alone and she had been aroused by a vision her brain had somehow constructed—and then the wall was rebuilt and her face flushed red with anger.

He supposed he needed her to forgive him, though he was loath to ask for it. Instead, feeling that time had progressed just in that short while of her approach, he glanced up to the starry sky and the improbably bright moon. Night would stay for far longer than the woman would understand, and by first light she would leave him.

"Why?"

Severus snorted as his eyes abandoned the heavens. The ever-present question, and he knew he had to phrase his words carefully. He had had years to construct such a conversation in his brain, but it seemed that in those fourteen years he had somehow overlooked how to approach his plea for help.

"It is rather complicated."

He felt rather foolish with such a response, but it was the truth, it all _was_ very complicated.

Hermione Granger was not amused by his response and her face told Severus this quite plainly.

"The wound?" she asked simply, her question giving Severus a starting point to which to explain.

"In this place, there is no death, and for as long as I have been here, nothing can harm me. It is the curse of this garden, and that is why you must not eat the fruit…"

As lovely as they look, he wanted to continue, it is all poison… The analogy to another garden and to another fruit was amusing, and he smirked to himself in the shadow, but he had so little time to amuse himself with remembering analogies of the past…

"I called you here to save me," he said flatly, stating his intention with no ceremony. "And if I have to beg, I will…" he muttered as an afterthought, but in truth had no intention of begging anyone for anything, Severus had begged enough in his life and he would have no more of it.

Hermione's head cocked to one side and she studied his face in the shadow; the only light was that catching a facet in his eyes.

"Why should you, of all people, need saving? Why now when the whole world believes you to be dead?"

The malicious implication in her voice was cutting, and Severus stepped away, further into the shadow. A spark of certainty was dashed, however he had not been wrong in what he had seen in her mind's eye. She would consider doing what he asked, but the degree to which she would go depended on him. Hermione Granger would need to care for him—either to love or to hate him—before she would sacrifice anything to save him from Hell.

If it meant the cruelest of manipulations and lies, he would save himself.

And so, Severus Snape began weaving his trap.


	5. Chapter 5

_**Four**_

Stumbling out from the shadow of the Forest, Hermione Granger felt as if time had somehow slowed, and the point in time in which she now stood was far later than she would have thought. The fact was this: her instincts were correct, and as she turned to look back at the creature that had brought her out of the Forest, all she saw was darkness. It seemed to Hermione then that there had never been a beast at all. She had not ridden on its wide back, clinging to his thick, and coarse black fur. She had not met a dead man in the Forest and that dead man had not been Severus Snape…

The chill of the wind swept through the ragged bits of clothing she had left, and Hermione began to see that indeed time had passed. The higher elevations of the Highlands were iced in white and the rolling fog that came from the Black Lake told her that it was not spring as it had been when she entered the Forest, but late autumn.

She bit down into her lower lip as her eyes moved across the grounds, past Hagrid's hut and its heavily smoking chimney, past the bare Whomping Willow, and to the castle where the evening lights were beginning to light in the eastern windows. Upon the lawn were black specks of cloaked students, out for a walk after dinner…

It all, the grounds, the castle, it was so alien to Hermione, and this feeling caused her great unease. She had never felt as if Hogwarts were an unfamiliar place, even after the War and all the destruction, Hogwarts had only ever been home, but at that moment Hermione could not reconcile the lingering sensation of the events of the Forest with Hogwarts. The Forest had been a dream, yet Hermione began to believe it all—the Forest, the Castle, it was all one never-ending dream where logic and reason had no place.

All the same, Hermione was cold and hungry, and the best remedy was to head for the castle…

One step away from the Forest was met with unseen resistance, and Hermione frowned down at her boots. Another step, then another, and Hermione's body stiffened as the sound of a pained scream alit the air, it was only as her mouth filled with grass from falling to the ground did she realise the scream had come from her body. The disconnect of her mind from the pain that soon began register was sobering, and Hermione gasped between screams, her body balling up, arms hugging her middle.

The Cruciatus was perhaps the only time in her life that she had felt such pain, but comparisons eluded her as her lungs burned with her muffled screams into the ground and the terrible wending sensation in her guts. Her body burned and Hermione could feel blood, hot and sticky, pooling between her thighs, damming behind the barrier of her trousers. Muscles contracted and Hermione was paralyzed as wave after wave of agony washed over her, and for a few moments, she lost consciousness. It was in those few moments that hands lifted her and carried her small, balled up body to the castle. Hermione only began to notice that she was no longer outside during a sudden ebb in the pain where she could no longer feel cold wind against her back.

Magic wafted over her body and like a rusty hinge getting the oil, Hermione's body unfolded and opened on a cot and her jaw was wrenched open to allow a potion to pass down her gullet. A soothing hand helped her sit up to swallow properly, and Hermione felt the cooling potion begin to quell the pain as it spread through her gut to her bones and to the quivering muscles of her arms and legs.

"There now," a voice whispered as hands helped her lie back. "Rest now…"

And so, Hermione did.

* * *

A gown of the softest linen replaced her ruined clothes and her skin had been washed with gently scented chamomile soap, but the discomfort remained. Hermione woke slowly, a ray of bright sunlight playing over her face as she had been sleeping the Hospital wing. The discomfort was not severe, but it was discomfort all the same—a tightness in her belly and a soreness in her hips. However, before she could investigate, she realised that Minerva McGonagall sat near the foot of her bed, wiggling her finger to stir milk into a steaming cup of tea. Screens blocked the rest of the ward from Hermione's view, but she could hear a small sniffling from down the aisle, doubtlessly from a student.

"You look much rested," Minerva McGonagall announced, and it occurred to Hermione that it seemed an age had passed since she had heard that voice. "The gauntness of cheek and dark under the eye are gone…"

Hermione moved to sit up against her pillows, but found she lacked the strength. Instead, she considered the Headmistress from her place against the fluffy pillows, her hands clenching the bed sheets under her blanket in anticipation for whatever it was Minerva was going to tell her. Hermione had known the Headmistress long enough to know that a twitch at the corner of the older woman's mouth meant bad news was coming, and the twitching was unrestrained.

"The Forest had been searched, and there was no trace, physical or magical, of you or what could have happened… The staff searched, the Ministry... Then months passed and a new term started and I was forced to find a replacement for you—a sad substitute, I will say…"

Hermione frowned, disturbed by Minerva's weak tone and inability to meet her eyes.

"What is it?"

Her voice was ragged and speaking irritated her throat, but Hermione spoke, causing Minerva's eyes to flash up to Hermione's face in a glance of near shock.

Hermione was never one to 'beat around the bush' so to speak, and even if it meant disbelief, shock, or even pain as the result, the swift and total truth was always the best.

"You have been missing for months, and when you were found on the edge of the grounds, it seemed to be pregnant for as many months as you were gone."

Hermione blinked, frowned, and then, nearly frightening the older woman out of her seat, began chuckling softly.

"What happened in the Forest, Hermione? What did you see, who did you meet?"

What and who, indeed? Hermione closed her eyes and lifted her hand from under her blanket to further darken her vision.

'He' had tricked her, had found a way to bind her to him, force to her to act on a promise she had made, but was reluctant to keep. She had not understood the gravity of his desperation at all, and she had been so willing to dismiss him that she had completely underestimated him.

Hermione's laughter turned to soft sobs and her other hand rose to cover her face in shame.

* * *

Severus began preparing himself for the possibility that this woman may not save him. He had no time to woo her, play upon her sympathies, or somehow convince her that he was anything other than the bitter old man that had made her life a living hell in the years she was under his tutelage. Oh yes, he remembered her and her affiliation to a boy that should have been his own son. That had been a lifetime ago, and to his surprise, he could not feel strongly about the boy, his mother, the Dark Lord, and the War anymore. He had played his role, and he was about to play another sooner than later if he could not somehow catch Hermione Granger and keep her from leaving without some sort of promise to return for him when the time was right.

That 'right' time was soon approaching.

She had posed a very good question.

"Why should you, of all people, need saving? Why now when the whole world believes you to be dead?"

He had half a mind to curse at her, to strike her, to hurt her. Why would he want saving? Severus Snape, having not died, did not want to die so soon after all. And then there was the prospect of Hell, which scared him more than he would like to admit.

"You would let me die?" he purred, setting his trap.

She blinked, the moonlight making her eyes luminous and ethereal as all things seemed to be in this garden.

He stepped toward her and she stepped back. There was hesitation just on the surface, and fear. There was a sudden thrill that made her shiver, and Severus took another step toward her, an idea forming in his brain. The old cruelties and insults would not work on this girl who had grown into a woman. Yes, she was attractive, she was soft and supple, and beneath the exterior of her well-constructed façade of morality was someone who needed more than simply a stimulating mental puzzle.

Severus Snape was a mystery to her and that was why she had not fled. There was also daring in her, daring enough to not run.

"You would let me die, though you are the only who can save me?" he asked with a bit more force.

"No, but I will not let you…" she trailed, her back knocking against a thick tree trunk.

He was upon her in a flash, towering over her, exalting over her as a predator would. Severus could tell that Hermione Granger was considering what to do and what to accept from him.

"…let you hurt me," she finished.

He touched her cheek and found it warm and flushed under the rough pads of his fingers. Like a ripe and luscious fruit far more enticing than that that grew in the Queen's garden, he wanted to taste her. Even if he were condemned to Hell, he would sate his desires before he went…

"You will help me?" he asked with a tone of amusement that she could easy avoid his touch, but did not. The human woman, he had never appreciated the warmth of woman before, or the comfort he felt with one so near. This warmth only reminded Severus of how much he had taken for granted in the past, and slowly, a small seed of regret germinated in the barren soil of his loveless soul.

"Yes…" she whispered begrudgingly through her teeth as his fingers traced a line from her jaw along her throat and to the tattered linen of her shirt. "Just…" she started, but already he was tracing the slope of her breast, his breath falling hotly her on forehead.

Just…? Hermione was unsure what she would say next.

"You swear it?"

Hermione swallowed thickly, and slowly raised a hand to push Severus' away. He allowed her to move away from him, her body purposely stiffening to hide her body's quivering. Severus found satisfaction the manner in which her arms moved to hug her body and how her thighs rubbed together sending out a faint scent of involuntary arousal.

"Tell me…" she began, speaking out to the moonlit garden. "Tell me about this curse, this place, all of it, and I will try to help you." She turned back to him, her face in shadow, but he could see the stone of her eyes, the resolve in her face. "But if you harm me or let me come to harm in any way, I will leave and forget I ever saw you… You will allow me to leave, to return to Hogwarts whenever I wish, and I will try my best to break this curse you are under, but you must swear to _my_ conditions."

Severus inhaled deeply and nodded, "I swear it," he uttered, knowing that Hermione Granger must leave long before All Hallows' Eve if she were to be safe from the notice of the Fae. As for 'harming' her, he wanted to laugh at her definition of the word. Until she understood his need of her, she would understand that the small cuts and bruises she had taken were nothing at all. Severus would not endanger the woman who would save him.

"Tell me," she said again, and this time her tone took on power, a power he had not expected, and he began slowly and precisely. He spoke until the time shifted and her body began to tire while his did not. Severus spoke for what seemed like ages, telling her about Aberforth and his debt, the Fae and their Queen, Teind and what it meant, he even told her how he had been so shocked by her presence that he had not thought about the consequences of coupling. Severus attempted to ask for forgiveness, but found he could not. Her eyes grew heavier the longer he spoke, and when Hermione began to lean too heavily against a trunk of a cherry tree, Severus knew that he must stop.

The night stretched on and on, as Severus knew it would, and as he carried her back to his bower, he began calculating how long it would be before the Fae would troop back to the border of their lands and to the garden. The time, for Severus, would be very short, but outside of the garden, beyond the magic of the Forest, months would pass. The time was short, but he knew what he must say and what he must do to insure that his soul would stay out of Hell a while longer.

* * *

It was night when she woke again in the garden, and despite her sleep, however long it had been, Hermione felt exhausted. Moving stiffly, she drank from the clear pond near the willow bower and began scanning the sky. The moon was just as full and large as it had been before; she had never seen a moon so bright.

Hermione found him tending to a shrub of night blooming flowers she could not identify. He sat in the soil, his fingers caressing the pale yellow petals while his other hand plucked away the deadened growth. Severus did not seem aware of her and did not turn to acknowledge her at all, allowing Hermione to study the shape of his back and the long tendrils of ebony hair that hid his face from her point of view.

She watched how his hands moved with practised grace, slowly caring for the plant. The manner in which his fingers brushed the soft underside of the flower petals was tender, just as tender as when he had stroked her jaw and throat. His hands were made for fine movement and tenderness, at least, Hermione wished to think. Years before, though he had made her academic and personal life difficult due to his double role during the War, Hermione had always respected Severus Snape and wondered in her most idle of thoughts, what it would be like to know Severus Snape if the threat of Voldemort did not loom over all things in their world. Would Severus Snape be so jaded or so cruel?

"Your pity is offensive."

Severus had been watching her through the curtain of his hair, and Hermione immediately closed her mind. Legilimency was not mind reading in a literal sense, but Severus Snape had been known to be a master of the art and Hermione did not doubt that his ability allowed him to look very deeply into her mind without needing eye contact.

She turned her face away, but as she did, Severus moved. Grasping her chin, Hermione was forced to look up into depthless black eyes.

"I am not pitiful," he said and instead of a growl that Hermione had anticipated, Severus whispered so softly that his words seemed to wrap about the mechanisms of her inner ear. The warm sensation did not last long however: "Do not give yourself airs, Hermione Granger, you are no model of success in the world…"

Hermione's eyes opened, though she could not remember when she had closed them. Severus pushed away and walked along the flagstone path, and in doing so; the night took on a darkness Hermione had not felt in the garden. It seemed almost as if the atmosphere reflected the dark man's mood, and this idea frightened Hermione. She was powerless and without the ability to produce even the simplest of magicks, her wand was useless and in her cloak, and her physical strength was nothing compared to that of Severus Snape. He had height and weight advantage, and while she felt as if she could easily slip into another deep sleep if she laid her body down, Severus did not seem to tire at all.

She watched him move away, and bit into her lower lip roughly as he suddenly stopped and turned back to her. The anger, even from the distance of several paces, was unmistakable, as was the frustration that drew his dark brow into a harsh furrow. Severus Snape's face was full of doubt, doubt about her, doubt about his fate, and Hermione could see this without being a skilled Legilimens.

"I have no more time to go about this delicately," he muttered just loud enough for Hermione to hear. Then louder: "The Fae will take me to the entrance of Hell that exists when the veils of the worlds are the thinnest. They will take me beyond the Forest and along the ancient high road…you should attack along the road."

"Attack?" Hermione repeated, suddenly incredulous, eyes shifting about the half-lit ground for a way to escape either physically or mentally.

She had promised him, naively…

Severus nodded, but his obsidian eyes did not see her, instead his sight was turned inward, observing a mental process that made Hermione began to edge backwards along the path.

"I will be easy to see, even in the dark. Fae are fair, luminous creatures and I… I…" he trailed, his eyes blind to her, and searching something deep inside himself, his mouth twisting in a harsh scowl. "I am not."

He had told her of the nature of the Fae, though she herself knew there was no documentation of such a creature in the volumes of the Wizarding world. He had told her of their strength and the power of their magic, but to attack or in any way provoke a creature such as Severus had described seemed far too much for Hermione to handle. As it was, her magic was hampered in the garden, which was, if Severus Snape were not completely mad or mistaken, part of the Fae realm.

"From the point in which you find me, you must hold fast to me and do not let go... Even if it pains you or disgusts you, you must not let go..."

Hermione paused in her slow retreat and cocked her head to the side. Severus' words were softer, less urgent, and his eyes, which had been turned inward and wide, were now gazing blankly at the flagstone path. The cloud passed away from the moon and the light that lit the garden made Severus Snape's eyes and hair seem to shimmer like polished onyx, a dull, dark glow of blues and blacks, a beauty that would never exist in the world beyond the Forest, and not for a man like Snape.

"How do you know this? Will such a thing free you?" Hermione asked, still skeptical and still ready to run if need be. She could always get another wand and she could always explain to Horace that his bandolier of herb collecting materials was lost... A sudden thought occurred to Hermione upon thinking of Horace.

There was something Horace had said to Hermione the morning she and Hagrid had left to enter the Forest, but that thought was lost to her almost immediately as Severus straightened and his eyes found hers.

"It has happened before, but that is not important now…" he growled, his black eyes narrowing on her brown eyes.

Whatever chink there was in her mental armor, all Severus Snape could see, apparently, was her desire to escape the garden, to escape him and all the confusion that she felt about seeing him again. This flaw, this gap in her mental defence was enough to send Severus into a fit of renewed frustration, and before Hermione could begin to think of which way to run, he was upon her, fingers digging into her upper left arm, pulling her along the path and toward the nearest yew boundary. As they reached the trees, the air felt different to Hermione and on a soft breeze wafting between the limbs of the yew, she could smell the Forest.

"This is your chance, Hermione Granger, run if you like, I will not chase you," he growled, releasing her arm roughly.

Hermione frowned, having to look up at his face as he peered down the length of his beakish nose to regard her with abject anger and resignation. And without having to say anything more, Hermione knew he was scolding her, as he would have all those years ago when he was the master and she was the student.

Go, those eyes told her, but know that you are condemning a man to his death, his true death and damnation.

Hermione was annoyed that Severus Snape seemed to know her well enough to know that she would not simply forget the fact she had made a promise and that it was in her nature to help any being that asked her for it. It was her weakness, she knew, and it had been a very long time since anyone had asked so much of her. Of course, the idea that she could possibly put Severus Snape out of her mind was appealing. Seeing him again, seeing him alive, confused her, and there was also the fact that Hermione had yet to categorise her feelings about his assault upon her and the feelings it had elicited. She knew she should be angry, feel violated, and perhaps her mind was sick and twisted after so many years of being alone, and perhaps she had self-esteem issues, but she knew that Severus Snape had made her body feel the brand of elation and excitement that had been lacking in her life.

"Go!" he breathed.

And she began to go, to slip between the trees, to forget about the man whom she had admired once. That man, that self-sacrificing hero, was not the man who lived in an enchanted garden, cursed to be sacrificed again to a power that Hermione was unable to believe existed, was no more. What remained was a man with an instinctual desire to live; a man whose past had devoured what was left of his past and his humanity.

Hermione closed her eyes as she began to slip through the invisible barrier, knowing that the regret might consume her, but by then Severus Snape would be dead, a second time, and only she would know. Promises could be broken, and Hermione wanted nothing more than to forget her conflicting emotions about the man.

Of course, it would never be so easy, and before Hermione was past the point of no return, a hand snatched her back by the throat and Hermione knew no more until she was clinging to the back of a black beast, riding through the darkness of the Forest, faster than she could perceive. Then, she was stumbling out of the Forest and falling face first onto the castle grounds, her body trying its best to abort the life that had somehow manifested in her womb.

* * *

Minerva McGonagall's gnarled hands were clenched in fists upon her narrow knees, and as Hermione closed her eyes, finished with her tale, Minerva could only stare at the obvious lump under the blankets below Hermione's tender breasts.

"No one can know."

Hermione's eyes opened slowly and with a quirking of her lips, she nodded at the Headmistress' words. Slowly she sat up, finding some strength, and motivated by the scent of food coming from somewhere in the ward. She could feel the life in her womb, and as foreign as it felt, the sensation was not completely alien.

"What is the date?" Hermione asked at last, wearily.

"It is September 28th, and you are approximately six and half months pregnant, Madame Pomfrey can tell you how many weeks exactly, and the sex..."

Hermione tried to smile, but she knew her mouth had contorted into a grimace.

"The pregnancy can be terminated, and no one besides you, Poppy and myself know about..."

"No."

Minerva frowned. "But he raped..."

Hermione's hands went instinctually to her swollen belly, and she tried to smile at her mentor's apparent mistake.

"No... I..."

Severus Snape had taken her by force, but Hermione could not remember such a violent act, even as she had been telling Minerva about meeting a dead man, a ghost, in the forest. The memory of Severus Snape was muddled, but somehow Hermione could not hate him or wish to kill the life in her womb simply because... No, she was far too exhausted to think about him any longer, and speaking her wishes to Minerva for food and rest, Hermione was soon left alone to her half-waking dreams. In those dream, Severus was there.


	6. Chapter 6

_**Five**_

Hermione walked the grounds in a heavy cloak, her eyes fixed on a distant point in the Highland hills, and nowhere near her immediate surroundings or her immediate situation. The life in her womb moved and fluttered, twisted and tickled, and Hermione wanted to ignore it. Of course, she could not, and absently, her hands went to her swollen belly to rub circles into the bulge.

October came with the cold of a premature winter, and Hermione found that the cold was unkind to her swollen body, making it difficult to move comfortably. Walking the grounds was exhausting, but distracting from the thought that every passing minute brought her closer to a decision that must be made. Halloween was fast approaching and the ambient excitement of the students had reached Hermione in her seclusion.

The issue of her disappearance had not been explained to the Ministry or to the staff, and Hermione had kept silent and hidden since returning. Floo calls were the extent of her contact with concerned friends, and letters to family. She was recovering from a shock, she had told them, but would be well soon enough… In her mind, being pregnant would be a happy occasion, something that would bring family and friends together in celebration, but in her situation, Hermione knew that even if she were to divulge the fact she was pregnant, no one would be celebrating once they learned who the father was and how it came to be that he was alive.

Hermione knew why she was pregnant, and it was not simply because she had had intercourse. It was Severus Snape's way of keeping himself forefront in Hermione's mind. It was also a guarantee that even if Hermione did not 'save' Severus Snape that she would never be able to forget him. The child in her womb was a boy, and in her mind she had already decided that the boy would bear a strong resemblance to its father.

Walking cleared some of the confusion in her mind, and left a clean, blank space between her ears. Walking also exhausted her and in doing so left her with dreamless rests for it was in the dreams that Severus Snape lived outside of the Forest.

Moving past Hagrid's pumpkin patch, her eyes pointedly avoided the dark of the nearby Forest, but she could hear movement and sense that he was near, paws softly disturbing the fallen leaves and pine needles, tongue lolling as the beast panted softly. Hermione ignored the presence the best she could, but the stirring in her belly and the thrill she felt in her blood was hard to resist.

She could not hate him, and he would not leave her alone.

In the time she was able to recover her strength, bits and pieces of memory came back to her, mostly in her dreams and in flashes of recollection. The Fae garden was still layered in the haze of a dream, but Severus Snape's face and his dark eyes were in clear focus. In her recollection, he was always near, always touching her face and whispering into her ear of things she could not recall. He cared for her; he kissed her hair and told her about the Fae and how it was that he knew how he could be saved. The specifics of his words were lost, but the feeling of somehow resolving her anger toward the man was real.

The dreams also brought remembrances of passion and it was these dreams that disturbed Hermione. Waking in a state of high arousal, Hermione wept from frustration, knowing that she could not satiate her desire completely. Her blood sang out for completion, and her body ached for the warmth of a body that was, in the minds of the world at large, dead.

Even if she saved him, what then? This is what made Hermione wish that she could forget. Would they fall in love and live happily ever after? This question gave Hermione chills.

There was no such thing as happily ever after, and if anyone knew this, it would be Hermione Granger, and to a greater degree, Severus Snape. Once she had saved him, there would be nothing to stop him from abandoning her and the child in her womb…

She rounded Hagrid's hut and began back to the castle with the Forest to her back.

What did it matter to her, why should she care if Severus Snape were saved, or even want anything to do with her if he were saved? Hermione had not needed anyone in her life before…

Stumbling on a step up to the castle, Hermione groaned and simply sat heavily on the stone, wrapping her cloak around her like a blanket. Staring back at the line of the trees, she could no longer sense his presence. Hugging her swollen middle, Hermione sighed, and closed her eyes toward a particularly icy wind.

Hermione had considered aborting the child and destroying the tangible proof that she had met Severus Snape in the Forest. However, the stirring in her belly was too real, and Hermione could not deny the strange satisfaction she felt in carrying a life in her womb. It was all to do with selfishness, she knew, either in wanting to abort or in keeping the child.

With a deep inhale, Hermione lifted herself off the step and began toward the front doors, left slightly ajar for her to slip inside the Entrance hall. However, it was as she began to enter that she heard her name uttered in a whisper. Hermione paused, listening, her hand clutching the carved wood of the door.

"…pregnant for as many months. Who could the father be, I wonder?"

The voice belonged to Irma Pince, the taciturn and gossipy librarian, whom since she had returned to Hogwarts, had somehow fostered a great dislike for Hermione. Hermione wondered if it was simply because she had let her fastidious book borrowing slip as an adult, often ignoring the due dates and perusing the Restricted Section like an old pro. Whatever the case was, Irma Pince had come upon a rather juicy bit of gossip, it seemed.

"That, my dear lady, is really not our business. I am sure Miss Granger would tell us what we need to know if it were of importance…" another voice answered, and Hermione felt a slight grin curl the corners of her mouth.

Since her return, she had not spoken to Horace Slughorn, but to hear the elderly Slytherin defend her to some degree made her smile.

"But do you not find it rather suspicious, and potentially dangerous for us? This is the making of a scandal…"

"Hogwarts has survived many a scandal, Irma," Horace muttered in warning. "I bid you a good evening," he finished with the false lilt of pleasantry, and Hermione could image the high spots of a blush on Irma Pince's bony cheeks.

The sound of Pince's soft-soled and purposely spelled quiet shoes slapping against the stone floor marked the spinster's departure, and then the hard sole tapping of Horace's shoes making its way toward the Slytherin passage to the Common Room followed. Hermione took the opportunity to slip into the darkened Entrance Hall only to come face to face with a smiling Horace Slughorn.

"Have you been walking, my dear? Let me escort you to your rooms," the mustached Slytherin insisted, taking her right arm under his chubby wing, letting the warmth of his fine tweed jacket suffuse her cold digits.

Hermione could not refuse her colleague, but knew that at any moment, Horace Slughorn would attempt to pry information from her. Horace was not so much a gossip as a collector of gossip, and he would resort to simple tricks to pry loose information. What he did with this information was a mystery, but most considered the elder professor a man who needed to be in the know.

Horace walked with the obvious pains of age, but Hermione did not complain about the slow pace, her own joints aching from the cold. Together they mounted the stairs leading toward Gryffindor Tower, walking in the ambient silence as most of the students had retreated to the warmth of their Common Rooms.

"Are you familiar with the ballad of Tam Lin, Miss Granger?"

Hermione bit into her bottom lip, a sudden memory coming to her of the morning she had entered the Forest with Hagrid. Horace had mentioned the name before, and it was this name and the associated tale that Hermione had obviously forgotten.

"I am…but…" she whispered.

"Then you know what it is you must do."

Pulling her hand from Horace's arm, Hermione stopped just short of the door to her chamber in a darkened, short corridor reserved for staff quarters. In the dark, Horace's rheumy green eyes sparkled slightly from a torch in a sconce at the entrance of the corridor.

Searching his pudgy face and his eyes, Hermione ground her teeth in anger, and from between her teeth she hissed: "How long have you known about him and his curse?"

Horace sighed, clasping his arthritic hands before him. "Since Aberforth took him and reported back to the castle several nights after the battle. Aberforth, in an act of finality, consulted Albus' portrait, but to get into the Headmistress' office, he had to pass those of us who elected to stay behind and rebuild the castle. I was privy to the conversation by lingering outside the office door, waiting to escort Aberforth out of the castle.

I spoke with Albus' portrait, who was less than pleased with his brother's solution. Of course, by then, there was nothing anyone could do. Severus was lost to us, but he was alive, and in being alive, there was a chance, no matter how slim."

Hermione's hand fell to her belly, which stirred so suddenly that it made her gasp softly.

"Wh-what do you mean 'a chance?'"

"A chance that he could be saved, or that he would make the effort to save himself, which he has…"

Her brows knitted, and Hermione frowned. "But he injured a student, and I… I…"

"As I mentioned: Tam Lin, Miss Granger. You must save try to save him."

Hermione stepped away, exhaling. "Why?"

The expression that crossed Horace Slughorn's face was one that unsettled Hermione to the core. Disappointment…

"Because he deserves to be saved, and no matter how reluctant you may or may not be, you owe the man _that_ much," Horace muttered, and Hermione felt the weight of his scorn.

She did not know how well acquainted Slughorn and Snape were, but there was a brand of affection in Horace's voice, just as there was truth. Hermione did owe Severus Snape, as did the whole of the Wizarding world. He had sacrificed himself to give Harry Potter a chance to destroy Voldemort, whether Severus Snape realised it or not.

"Besides, the loss of such a wizard was a blow to us all," Horace continued. "His return to our world would be welcome, now that we all know the truth of his role in the War…"

"We do?"

Horace, whose face had been stony, softened until his mouth curled into a sly smile. "Yes, it seems that Rita Skeeter's recently revised publication, corroborating Mr. Potter's testimony of Snape's character in the past few years, has endeared our old colleague to many of those who doubted him."

'Snape: Scoundrel or Saint?' had been at the bottom of the Daily Prophet's bestseller list since its publication soon after the War. The thin volume had sold poorly, and Rita Skeeter was forced to crank out Harry Potter's unofficial biography post-haste to keep herself from the poorhouse. In the years since the War and Hermione's pursuits had kept Severus Snape out of mind, just as he had been out of sight for all those years.

"I have a copy, if you would like to peruse…"

Hermione snorted and felt her mood lighten. "No thank you…"

The expression on Horace's face darkened again, and Hermione took another step back.

"All the same, you know what you must do, and do soon, Miss Granger."

Hermione sighed.

"I bid you a good evening," Horace said then with as much coldness as he had directed toward Irma Pince. He turned and slowly tottered back toward the stair hall, leaving Hermione alone in the growing dark.

She stood in the corridor for some time, considering Horace's words and the ballad of Tam Lin.

* * *

'This has happened before…'

Hermione slept fitfully that night after learning that at least one living person had known that a man who was indebted to otherworldly creatures had traded Severus Snape to the Queen of the Fae in exchange for freedom from perhaps damnation.

The old ballads varied when it came to how Tam Lin came to be the property of the Fae, but all the ballads agreed that he was to be sacrifice, tithe, to Hell. Tam Lin was saved by a woman, sometimes named Jennet, Janet, or Margaret, and the tales ended with Tam Lin being freed to be a loving lord and husband to the heroine. The ballads also told of how Tam Lin had taken Janet's virginity as a fee for her invasion of the haunted lands or forests where Tam Lin was cursed to stay. In this 'taking,' more accurately rape, Janet became pregnant, and hid the identity of the father, thinking that she was carrying a half Fae child.

Hermione had recounted the versions in her mind as she prepared for bed, but realised upon settling into the blankets and pillows, that Severus Snape was not Tam Lin and she was no Janet. The story did not exactly apply to her or to him, and in this thought, Hermione fell into her fitful slumber.

"This has happened before, and that is how I know the prospect of Hell is real…

She was in the garden again and the sun shone down on her as she lay in a bed of the softest clover and at her feet, sitting with a blossom between his thin lips, was the man who would not let her leave without the surest of promises.

The sun warmed her legs and face, but Hermione was left to languish in the borderlands of sleep. The pleasant tingle of satiation made her eyelids heavy, and the sound of his voice was a lullaby. Leaving the garden seemed to be impossible, and Hermione was giving in to the overwhelming urge to simply sleep as the night had stretched on into day.

"The Queen has learned from her mistakes, and escaping her will not be so easy this time…"

Hermione had tried to step through the boundary when he had pulled her back into the garden, throwing her back into the dream. She fought him, slapping his face, pulling his hair, doing anything to keep him from catching hold of her and bending her body to his will.

He kissed her, and the shock of such an intimate gesture forced Hermione to pause. In the moonlight, their skin, as clothing was peeled away, glowed silver and smooth. Laying back onto the cool stones of the path, her fighting hands became hands that locked his body to hers, forcing his mouth to hers in an effort to take sustenance from the flavour of the forbidden fruits in the garden around them.

"You must come for me…" he whispered, and Hermione could not decipher the meaning. Instead she tugged on his hair to lick the inside of his mouth again, drunk on his taste.

"If only I could make you love me, and then I would not doubt… No, I would always doubt, even in matters of love. The only thing that saved the last soul from Hell was love. Fae do not know love as we do, or passion, or kindness… They are jealous of us humans because of our capacity for such things, and because we are able to experience love, we will never be slaves to them."

His hands pressed into her ribs, frantic fingers tracing the flesh and bone along the crest of her hip. Hermione groaned into his throat and bucked her hips against his in a bruising movement. The scar that had, for all intents and purposes, killed him was nothing more than a smooth silver mark, a minor flaw on a man who would exact the most sacred of vows from her no matter the consequence.

"If you do not come for me, I would understand, but please…please…"

Hermione burned, delirious and fevered, knowing in some distant part of her mind, that this garden was not meant for her and because she was an intruder, the garden and the magicks that it held were somehow killing her.

"Please…" he whispered as his hands moved to push himself up to kneel between her thighs. He studied her and the sweat that had formed between their bodies, glistening in the moonlight. "Please, Hermione…free me."

The press of the head of his cock into the folds of her flesh had no sobering effect, but the sensation had Hermione gasping for breath. Pressing the soles of her heels into his back, Severus filled her, a hiss passing through his teeth at the penetration. The instinctual motion did not come immediately as Hermione simply held him close, warmed by their connection as her fevered body began to shiver.

Severus leaned over her, kissing the dampness on her brow, his arms gathering her against his body until he began thrusting into her in a tight embrace. In his arms, Hermione felt small, precious, and needed. And suddenly, all the fear, all the anger, all the doubt melted away as their bodies twisted until Hermione straddled Severus Snape, her palms pressed the planes of his chest.

Wildly, she bucked against him, her eyes clouded, but fixed on the face of a man that had, at one time, treated her with disdain. Yet, Hermione could not quite remember that man. Severus Snape was more fiction than reality to her then, even though she could feel the swell of his cock and the tensing of his abdomen.

He grasped her hair, loose from the plait, and pulled her down to nip at her lips and jaw. The new angle caused a heat to grow in her womb, and the additional thrust of Severus' hips up into her body caused Hermione to groan his name. Severus whispered in return, his voice ragged, his hands pressing finger mark shaped bruises into her hips, his words were senseless mutterings.

Hermione was the one to plead, to cry into his chest, to bite into the muscle of his shoulder, and push toward climax. The crush of muscle and jolt and slap of skin against skin brought the timeless dance to the point of no return, and as Hermione's back straightened, lifting her face from Severus' she sang out into the ethereal night.

"This has happened before, once upon a time, and though love may not save me, perhaps something else will..."

The pulsation of orgasm forced the deeply lodge head of Severus' cock to swell before he too followed Hermione along, his hands clutching her hips, his eyes rolled back and mouth wide in a silent shout. Hermione sighed into his neck as the heaving of his chest rocked and soothed her into a warm doze. Even as his arms enveloped her and crushed her close, Hermione could not think of the consequences of allowing Severus Snape to fill her body with scalding seed. She could not think of curses or Fae creatures, she could only feel the warmth of his need, the warmth of her gratification, and the safety she felt being so close to this man who held her so tightly and so desperately that Hermione perceived something like love.

Love… Hermione had known it once, but never so intensely, and never so fraught with urgency. He needed her to care enough to save him, even if it meant binding her to him with something more powerful than any magic.

"I hope you will forgive me, someday," he whispered into her wild nest of hair, but his words were lost in the aether of Hermione's half sleeping brain.

It was the echo of Severus Snape's words that brought Hermione into the waking world, the memory, or the dream fading, but leaving the lingering impressions of the sensation of his touch. Months had passed since that night in the enchanted garden, and how time moved in that place was impossible to understand. Severus had kept her in the garden for months, but the passage of time was imperceptible to Hermione until she had stepped out of the Forest and the spell of time was reset.

Lying on her side, Hermione's hand moved to the swell of her belly. He had wanted, with some foresight, forgiveness for the child in her womb, the child that would bind her to him.

It was a gamble, Hermione assumed, a gamble that she would be able to bear a child, and a gamble that the life inside her would mean anything to her at all. It was sly and cruel, and as Hermione's limbs curled inward to embrace her middle, she knew that guilt of not saving Severus Snape would eat her alive as the child grew.

Hermione had decided long before, but had grappled with the thought of confronting a power she had only experienced by finding the garden prison. In her research and in her knowledge, the Fae that had control over Severus Snape only existed in Muggle fairy tales. How anything so powerful or so dangerous could exist in the reach of the Wizarding world without being documented gave Hermione doubt, but more importantly, fear. The unknown was frightening to her, and what she must do in order to break the curse and to divert the course of fate of Severus Snape, frightened her.

* * *

The ancient high road that led away from Hogwarts and Hogsmeade had not been in proper use since before the use of the Hogwarts Express over a hundred and twenty years previous. The road was hidden to Muggle eyes, but stretched down out of the Highlands as far south as York. Students rode in enchanted carriages that would appear before their homes and from there, a caravan formed along the ancient road leading to Hogwarts.

Over a century later, the high road was overgrown and rough, but it was the only road Hermione knew of that led away from the human settlement of Hogsmeade and into the wild of the Highlands.

It was a particularly bright, but cold day, three days before All Hallows' Eve, and Hermione spelled her cloak to keep her warmer as her boots slipped and caught in the old paving stones. Time had made the road uneven, roots pushing up the wide paving stones that could have only been placed by magic. The cracks between the stones held a wealth of mosses and weeds, all of which made progress along the road difficult for a woman whose center of balance was off. Hermione took her time, looking for signs that this road had a more supernatural purpose.

The hills closed in on the road so that there was only room for the road and a small stream off the Black Lake to snake though the wilderness. The trees bent in close to the road off the hillsides, and in several places, smaller run off creeks from the hills had washed the high road away, paving stones misaligned or missing altogether. Pine boughs hanged low and many times Hermione had to push her way through to continue along the road, searching for a clue as to where Severus Snape's gaolers would take him.

Hermione's feet began to ache as minutes became miles, and with a sigh she stopped along the road, finding a wide space where a strange rock formation stood like a column of gray stone, a natural mile marker. It was on this column of rock that Hermione did indeed find a faded marking, an arrow carved into the stone, and a number indicating the miles left until Hogsmeade could be reached. She was approximately ten miles southwest of the nearest magical settlement.

Sitting down on a low rock nearby, Hermione looked back up the road and then down the road. She could imagine the sound of the wood and iron wheels clacking on the paving stones, and the students in the carriages, faces pressed to the windows in anticipation of seeing the majesty that was Hogwarts. Children still pressed their faces to the train window, only to be disappointed to only see Hogsmeade station.

Drawing her wand, and a shrunken, borrowed Cleansweep from her cloak, Hermione resized the broom and stood. Certain she could manage a tame and low flying broom; she sat astride the handle with its Cushioning Charms, and urged the broom forward. Flying a few inches off the road, Hermione pushed the broom faster until the road began to crowd the stream that ran along it until, finally, the stream branched away and the soud of a waterfall could be heard.

Pulling up on the broom, Hermione hovered over the road, which began to descend along a slope, an ancient stone bridge visible below, crossing the stream just below a steep and spectacular cascade. Pushing her broom slowly forward, Hermione found that at the base of the waterfall, just before the bridge, was another rock formation that jutted out toward the water, curiously like a natural bridge broken just feet from the falling torrent.

When her boots set down on the road just before the bridge, Hermione gasped, feeling as though she had touched an electric wire alive with low voltage. The circuit of magical power between her body and the very ground sent shivers up her spine, and caused the child in her womb to kick about uncomfortably.

Just as she had felt the power of the Fae garden, the sacredness, Hermione could feel the negative magic of something unnatural, and something dangerous. The wind off the cascade was icy, and the darkness that loomed behind the water was what had the hair on the back of Hermione's arms standing on end. As she stood on the road, she began to notice how the water parted on occasion, revealing the blackness beyond, and the mouth of a cave.

There was no sense of evil or malign, but the danger Hermione felt was a danger to her life. She recalled the sensation as she began to fly back toward Hogwarts—the Veil. All those years ago, when she was just a child and not yet a woman, she had only the vague sensation of the 'wrongness' of the Veil in the bowels of the Department of Mysteries. Of course, she had not had the time to examine what it was about the Veil that unsettled her, but as she flew through the protective gates to the grounds, she knew that what she had felt was death.

If that was where the Fae were to take Severus, it would be well before that point along the ancient high road that Hermione would attempt to save him. The life in her womb, and the liveliness she felt in her own bones warned her of that place, that passage to what Severus had called Hell for, apparently, a lack of a better or informed word. It was not a passage to Hell; it was simply a passage to another place, a place that Hermione wanted to avoid.

The sun set, and Hermione watched it from her chamber window, trying to reconcile the thought that she may only have a few more sunsets left if Severus' plan were somehow to fail.


	7. Chapter 7

_**Six**_

The air portended snow, and Hermione knew that if the clouds were thicker, blocking out the strangely green hunter's moon, snow would fall in the Highlands on Halloween night. Hermione pulled the cowl of her cloak further down to block the light, yet frigid wind blowing down the avenue of the high road, rusting the grasses between the paving stones and sending breezy whispers into the air from the waving pine boughs.

She waited in the dark behind the natural marker she had found the day before, the pillar of stone wide enough to hide her well from anyone passing along the road. As it was, Hermione had waited for what seemed to be hours, and nothing passed along the road, not even an animal from the depth of the pines. In the patches of moonlight that lit the road, Hermione could see the dampness of dew beginning to wet the weeds. Midnight was approaching and Hermione waited.

"This has happened before, but that time, the Queen's prisoner was set free. Tam Lin, was what he was called, and though he was a Muggle, he learned quickly enough the weakness of the Fae."

Hermione was dreaming again, and in her dream, Severus held her face between his large hands at the edge of the garden. He was explaining to her again, somewhat pedantically, what it was she must do.

"They will try to force us apart by using my curse against us both...in the tales my predecessor was forced to shift shape until his heroine's love and her embrace brought the Fae's magic to nothing. Love...love, you see, saved Tam Lin, as for me..."

She had felt guilt, love did not come like it did in fairy tales—instantaneously and firm. What she felt for the man whose impossibly black eyes revealed regret and sadness, was not pity, but sorrow that his life had been, and seemed to always be, pain.

Hermione loved him for needing her, and she hated him for the very came reason, and it was as his fingers moved to push a tendril of hair behind her ear that Hermione's sleeping mind perceived a sound outside of her dream.

He kissed her and thanked her, and Hermione's eyes fluttered open as the sound of horses hooves upon the paving stones woke her. It had been seven years since the last time the ancient high road had carried anything other than the stray fallow deer or fox. She had fallen asleep, her back to the stone pillar, her cloak warm and conducive to a comfortable sleep, but as she raised the cowl of her cloak and moved with as much silence as she could muster to stand, she could see a pale light coming down the road from the direction of Hogsmeade.

A sound wafted on the wind, and Hermione shuddered, a hand going to her belly as the twinkling of bells melded with the clop of hooves. There was a hum, and as the light came nearer, Hermione realised what she was seeing.

A procession of four white horses abreast, appeared on the road under the trees, which seemed to part as the parade passed. The horses were bright eyed and perfect, their bridles green and their mounts as luminous as the moon overhead. Dressed in green and silver, the riders were the most beautiful creatures Hermione had ever seen, though she could not discern a sex from the faces or their bodily features.

With skin as smooth as silver and eyes just as pale, the Fae were androgynous and otherworldly. Their hair was long and held back in ornate plaits and silver ornaments, white as snow and lustrous. Hermione could not help but hold her breath as they came nearer and nearer to her hiding place, frightened that the sound of her breathing would somehow alert them that a human woman was so close.

As the trees parted to allow the magical party to pass, banners flew upon an unfelt breeze; standards with strange markings that Hermione assumed identified the troop to other Fae and like creatures. As the first line of troopers passed, Hermione noticed they were arms with swords and lances strapped to their small saddles. The Fae, from her quick estimate were taller than typical men, with long limbs capable of only lithe movement. The delicate, but solid manner in which they rode told Hermione that these Fae were powerful, masters of the horses, and of natural forces.

As she watched, she turned her attention away from the enchanting vision of the Fae troopers to search the oncoming procession for a black spot amidst the light. Hands clenching and unclenching, Hermione's anxiety began to build as, further down the road, she saw him.

Severus Snape sat atop of black horse, hands bound with silver fetters, and dressed in fine black clothing fit for another time. His hair had been styled and was unfitting to his character, yet Hermione found him handsome for the first time in her life. His skin glowed and his eyes, fixed on the horn of his saddle, were alight with internal embers of passion. He was waiting for her, and Hermione gathered herself to be ready. Moving with the utmost stealth, Hermione braced herself against the hillside and the pillar, muscles coiling to move. The child in her womb was unusually still, and for the first time since leaving Severus, she felt as if she could defy the fact that her body was weighed down and stiff.

The procession moved slowly, and by the time Severus came near, Hermione could see the last rider, whose luminous quality outshone all the others, but Hermione did not have time to consider why. Instead, she drew her wand at the last moment, and cast.

The sound that filled the hollow between the hills was deafening and no matter how well trained the Fae mounts had been, the boom that echoed sent the horses running and jumping in all directions. The vision of otherworldly beauty had been destroyed as the troopers' voices shouted for order and for defense. Hermione paid no mind to the odd voices or to the sound of swords being drawn for she had launched herself at Severus, who, at the last moment, met her eyes.

He smiled, and for the first time, Hermione knew that, despite all her doubt and vacillation, she loved this man.

Hermione's arms wrapped about his neck, and together, they flew over the back of Severus' mount, falling to the road. The impact was spelled to be soft, and Hermione landed with her face in Severus' chest. The chaos that surrounded them gave the two humans time to stand, though Hermione would not relinquish hold of Severus' neck.

They stared at each other for only a few moments before the troopers reformed, but not in procession. Instead, all eyes, pale and unnatural, were upon them, a circle formed with no escape.

'So it shall be…' a voice sounded, as soft as the wind, but as powerful as a gale, and Hermione glanced out of the corner of her eye to see that beyond the circle, sitting higher than the rest, and glowing brighter than the moon, was the Queen of the Fae.

This creature, distinctively female, as compared to her troop, was a giantess upon a horse whose coat was impossibly green. She was mounted sidesaddle, and was dressed in the most luxurious white furs and green velvets, ringlets of silver falling from her thick golden hair. This woman was undeniably beautiful, and Hermione felt the inferiority of her magic by simply meeting the Fae's bright silver eyes. Yet, as beautiful as this queen was, Hermione could see the marks of cruelty in her face.

'…but shall never be again. You are _cursed_ Severus Snape…' and at the utterance of his name, Severus choked.

Hermione returned her attention to the man she held, and found that his face was no longer human. Clothing tore and bones splintered, but Hermione held fast to Severus as his body shifted with much pain and blood into the form of the beast Hermione had first encountered trying to save Mr. Belby. The beast snarled in Hermione's face as its weight pushed Hermione down to the ground so that it stood over her.

This was only the beginning as the violence of another form began, and Hermione closed her eyes and hanged on. Claws tore at her, teeth and bone, and though Hermione remembered that in the ancient ballad of Tam Lin Janet had not come to harm, she knew that it had been a lie. Fur and scales, skin and barbs pricked and alternately caressed her skin.

The cries that came from the mouth of what had once been Severus Snape were chilling, but Hermione did not open her eyes as she felt her flesh being torn. The life in her womb protested the trauma to its mother, and Hermione bit her tongue to keep from screaming as she felt the bones in her ever fast arms snap and her left shoulder dislocate as the forms Severus took changed with every second that passed.

Then, finally, the feral cries silenced as Hermione felt the form of a man fall against her, pinning her to the road below. The sensation of Severus' breath against her face forced Hermione to open her eyes at last, but the shock and regret she saw in those eyes were as painful as the freely flowing wounds in her body. He touched her face and from the corner of his right eye, a single tear fell.

"You came…you came…" he whispered, bending down to press a kiss to her forehead.

Hermione said nothing, but winced as Severus lifted himself up to look between their bodies and the obvious bump of her belly. For a split second, Severus' eyes widened, before narrowed with sorrow again. With no more strength and the pain becoming to be too much, Hermione's arms fell from about Severus' neck. Severus moved off Hermione to stand nude, moving to lift her up into his arms, but before he could begin to act upon his wish, the circle of troopers crowded in on them and sword tips and lance ends fell toward their vulnerable bodies.

'You think love has saved you?'

Hermione rolled onto her side to look up at Severus and toward the sound of the queen's voice, but could do no more.

'You think we would simply let you go now that you have broken the curse?'

"I am no longer under your power," Severus said, his chin lifting with a sense of pride. Hermione wondered how long he had wanted to say those words aloud.

'True, but that does not mean that I cannot bring you under my power again, Severus Snape, and I will… _now_ …'

The queen's voice, as ethereal as it had been, turned cold and sharp, and before Hermione could think to find her wand from the tatters of her cloak, magic was beset upon her, and the pain that came was unlike any she had felt before. There was no comparison, the Cruciatus and the near miscarriage was nothing, and Hermione screamed in such a way that startled even the Fae troopers.

The ripping of flesh, and the gush of blood had Hermione flat on her back, eyes blind to even the moon overhead as the child in her womb seemed to swell and begin to push down inside Hermione's pelvis.

"No!" a voice called out, and Hermione did not realise it was her own.

She had never considered how painful childbirth could be, nor she did consider ever having her child in the open cold of night, months before the babe was full-term. The magic that forced this premature birth, also aged the child, and Hermione had felt the tendons in her belly and back tearing, and compounded with the violent muscle contractions of imminent birth, she wished the pain would simply render her unconscious. However, as Hermione forgot about the man she had saved and the danger of the creatures that surrounded them both, she focused her instinctual and dwindling energy on pushing.

Logically, and oddly enough, she was not thinking about Severus Snape or the Fae, but was thinking of how she could make it back to the castle. She knew that with her wounds she could move without aid, and all the pain from her wounds could not matter if she wanted her son to live through the night.

And as the first cries alit the air, there was a palpable sigh, not from those assembled, but seemingly from the blood stained earth itself. The whispers that followed were frightening to Hermione whose perception began to expand beyond herself and her bloody newborn son in her ruined arms.

'Will you yield yourself, or shall I kill your son, Severus Snape?' the queen asked, her hard eyes peering down a perfect nose to consider the naked man in the moonlight.

'What shall it be, human?' the trooper whispered in chorus, ever devout to their queen, and to their ancient ways. A soul would be given that night, and to the Fae, it did not matter which soul would go.

With great difficulty, Hermione wrapped the babe in the tatters of her cloak, hoping that the Warming Charms were still in effect though she could not feel anything but cold from blood loss. Then, with even more difficulty, she moved to grasp the back of Severus' heel, hoping that by touching him she would somehow ease her immense pain.

"A trade," Severus muttered. "I was the one who was to be the tithe. I will go willingly in the place of the woman and child, but you must swear that neither will come to harm and after this night be unmolested by the Fae."

Hermione wept, fear seizing her, and as Severus spoke to the Queen, going as far as bowing down to one knee, Hermione knew that she was naïve to think that she might have a chance of living beyond that night.

He would sacrifice himself, and Hermione could not allow it to happen.

'Why would I want your soul when I can have one as pure as new snow and as precious as diamonds?'

Rage replaced agony, and Hermione felt her magic, what remained, begin to pool in a space near her heart.

"NO!" she said, and her voice was laced with the force of her remaining magic, and her remaining will to fight. The power of that magic startled the Fae, but the sound of their twittering and pitying laughter sapped the last bit of hope from Hermione's soul.

"I will go, I am the Teind, my Queen," Severus said, stepping away from Hermione's weakening grasp to go to one knee in supplication.

The agony of movement was nothing compared to the utter despair that swept through her heart as she clung to Severus' back, unable to find the words to plead with him to fight. If she could fight, Hermione would, but the effort of trying to keep her baby warm and safe at her breast was far more important, and all hope seemed to be gone from even Severus.

"You will not be the sacrifice again, Severus Snape. I forbid it!" Hermione hissed, the anger in her voice beginning weakened and thin. "Better we all die!" she gasped.

Severus said nothing, but Hermione could feel a change in his demeanor by the simple stiffening of his spine. What choice did they have, after all?

The circle broke around them and one by one the troopers began to reform their procession. Hermione, racked with exhaustion, could not protest as soft hands lifted her away from Severus, but as her child was taken from her limp arms, Hermione gave one last shout and fell silent. She was swirling about the event horizon of the darkness of death, and she was powerless to stop the sudden peace that fell over her brain.

The ruined cloak and dress she had been wearing were pulled away, as were her boots. Cool fabric was wrapped about her instead; black muslin covered her wounds and through some trick of Fae magic, slowed the bleeding. When her face was covered and Hermione only just see the moon through the weave, she sighed.

"Where's my baby?" she asked the hands that cradled her gently and placed her into Severus' warm arms.

As Severus mounted his black horse, Hermione knew then what was to happen next, and with the last bit of her living energy, draped her arms about Severus' neck to rest her chin on his left shoulder. Standing under the shadow of a pine, a lone trooper Fae stood with a cloak swaddled babe whose dark eyes peered back at her with longing, limbs wriggling and mouth moving to begin crying again. No newborn was ever so attentive, and Hermione feared that whatever power the Fae had would mar the child in some way.

"What have we done?" she whispered as the procession began to move again.

This was not how the story was supposed to go. In the old tale, Tam Lin and Janet found happiness and lived…

Severus held her tightly as the Queen passed by them, moving to her position at the back of the procession. Hermione watched the woman through heavy eyes, and wondered if the Queen would allow the child to live.

Severus apologised, but Hermione paid no mind as the road bent and the vision of her child was lost.

Perhaps this was her punishment for a life wasted in vain pursuits of knowledge, and perhaps this was only a precursor to what Hermione Granger's Hell would be. As she closed her eyes for the last time, Hermione clung to one thing, the only thing that mattered when all hope was gone—her love. It was trite, she knew, but it was all she had left, and the man who held her in his arms loved her for simply trying to love him in return.

As far as Hermione knew, as she began to slip over the edge of death, the passage beyond the waterfall was to a place very much like Elysium written about in the ancient texts of Homer and Hesiod. It was where Severus should have gone fourteen years before, she believed.

Her last physical sensation was that of being carried, off the horse, and passing through the parted water and into the darkness of Severus' idea of the Hell-mouth. It was there that Hermione felt Severus shudder and shake, feeling as though his life was a never ending string of failures to the people he loved in his life. If she could have reassured him, Hermione would have tried, but already she dangled from his arms, dripping the last of her life's blood behind them.

Yes, Elysium and then to the Fields where heroes lived forever, Hermione could see it, could smell the lavender and wild flowers of the plain…


	8. Chapter 8

**Postlude – at a threshold of a door**

The child was bloody, and the Fae trooper used a Conjured kerchief to wipe away the clots of afterbirth on the boy's pink face. The trooper believed it best that the human child look appealing so that it would not be left to freeze on the threshold of the human castle. The child made no noise, but stared up at the trooper, as if knowing that it was not of the right kind to be caring for a human baby.

The trooper thought the child novel and strange. Already, the trooper could feel the innate magical power of the child, which had only been enhanced by the Queen's spells that brought the babe into the world months before its natural time. This child would be powerful, and this scared the trooper. He knew the vindictive capacity of humanity; he remembered the ancient wars and the violence men could inflict on the Fae. No, human magic was not to be underestimated, and though the trooper would never admit it, he thought the Queen was in error in separating the mother from the child. With such powerful parents who would pass beyond the veils of life and into a brand of immortality—the trooper feared this child in his arms. However, the trooper was tasked to bring the child to a place where it would be cared for by its own kind.

The night air seemed to vibrate all around the trooper and he could feel that the Teind was accepted just as he approached the gates of the human castle. He had always been curious about the massive castle and the magicks that protected it, but even the Fae, in their wisdom, age, and power, did not know all the mysteries of man. The trooper paused before crossing through the gate, seeing the mechanism of the protective magic and finding it was easily dismantled.

The babe finally closed its strange dark eyes and slept, but the trooper felt the weight of his duty. It had been an age since he had been so close to human habitation, and inside the stone walls of the castle there hundreds of sleeping humans capable of harming him if he did not move with haste and stealth.

The old human caretaker was fast asleep; a hideous feline on his lap, just inside the front doors of the castle, but the trooper paid the simple and extremely ordinary human no mind and glided through the dark hall to the stairs. Along the walls, paintings snored, having celebrated heartily the occasion of All Hallows' Eve. The trooper was glad for the silence and the sleep, making his task easier. He had not wanted to simply leave the human babe on the outside threshold, it could be easily mistaken for rubbish by the state of its swaddling.

Sensing the source of the castle's protection, the trooper moved along the stairs and into a dimly lit corridor and toward the figure of a stone beast guarding the path the trooper needed to follow. Gathering the small swaddled bundle under one long arm, only the soft snapping of attenuated finger was needed to send the gargoyle moving aside. The trooper, though pleased with himself at the cleverness of his magic, did not express this on his handsome face. Having no need to wait for the spiraling stairs, the trooper floated up to the landing where he felt that the castle's protections were strongest. However, he felt he could go not farther. The protections on the heavy oaken door were powerful, and though the trooper wished to place the child in the centre of such protections, this particular threshold would do.

In the dark, the trooper took the bundle into his hands, holding it out to peer down with preternatural eyes at the little face within the bloody pieces of green cloak. Under his lithe fingers he could feel the slender twig of Vinewood, obviously forgotten by the mother. A tiny fist held to the wood inside the swaddling, and the trooper had no desire to touch the wood with his own skin lest it somehow harm him. Magic was a delicate matter, as delicate as the humans who used it.

The babe stirred slightly as the trooper set it down on the threshold of the door, charming the stone floor to warm to keep the chill away. With a last long look, the trooper was pleased with his success at infiltrating the human stronghold and slipping past the ward and enchantments unnoticed. Even more, the trooper was glad that babe had not cried. The pitiful birth cries had send shivers down his spine and unsettled his senses at first. The humans would find the child and care for it, sensing as he had the importance and power the child held.

Stepping back to drop soundlessly down to the corridor below, he could already hear the stirring from within the chamber beyond the oaken door. The presence of the babe had been noticed while he had not.

A rare small smile curled the corners of the trooper's supple and perfect lips, and then the trooper moved faster than any human eye could track now that he was unburdened. Through the dark and silent halls and past the caretaker, the trooper found that he had escaped the human's castle just in time as lamps were lit from inside at the discovery of the human child. The trooper could not have known the strangely fateful coincidence that years ago another boy-child had been left to its destiny on a doorstep on All Hallow's Eve. With events set into motion to create the details of another heroic legend in the Wizarding world, the trooper moved on.

While sorrow began to emanate from the castle, the trooper found the night air to be magnificent. For another seven years, the power of Hell had been averted and the Fae would survive another cycle.

Humans had their uses, the trooper felt, but he could foresee a time when even the Fae would be forced to retreat to the Undying Lands for all time and the connection between the worlds would be severed. Teind, the tithe to Hell was more a sacrifice of life for power, and though the trooper accepted Teind for what it was, he knew that someday it would not be enough to keep the Fae from what afflicted the humans—death.

* * *

Author's Note:

This story was part of the 2010 SS/HG Exchange Summer Challenge.


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